You and that mountain of paper sitting next to you...
You may have noticed, as I have, that the recent economic news has resulted in a larger than usual flood of postcards, brochures, booklets, letters and junk mail from everyone you have ever done business with.
If you look to your left or right, you may find that you are sitting next to an ever growing mountain of paper, with fairly interesting time sensitive offers, and things that you might actually want to read.
Which brings us to the relationship between our time, our energy and our paper. It takes time to handle all this paper, and there is a popular myth that needs to be faced, debunked, and thrown out with the circulars.
Have you heard that you should handle each piece of paper ONCE?
While there are indeed some pieces of paper that yield to this advice, my experience is that for most paperwork, it is pure nonsense. You may need to handle a sheet of paperwork more than once for many valid reasons. You may need to make phone calls during the work week, get additional information from your files, or simply divide up the work in ways that are convenient for you.
That tinge of guilt you feel as you set aside the insurance renewal form is misplaced, and gets in the way of getting the form filled out and sent off in a prompt and timely manner. For many people, there is simply too much pressure added to the decision making process if you feel that the each of the hundreds of pages of paper that arrive every week represents a choice that has to be made "immediately, and once and for all."
It is useful to let go of the mistaken notion that you will pick up one piece of paper and follow it uninterrupted through its trail to the filing cabinet or wastebasket. It is also useful to let go of the notion that you will necessarily do all your paperwork in one fell swoop.
The reality of handling paper.
So, what is a more reasonable expectation for handling the daily influx of paper? You may find it more useful to handle the paperwork in a series of limited scope passes. Each pass over the pile is intended to reduce, or at least maintain equilibrium over that incoming stack. For extra bonus points, dig deeper into the fray. Given how much paper everyone must handle, you may not be able to do these tasks in one sitting. If you must do a marathon session to clear out a backlog, find extra treats and rewards, and break the work up into as many sessions as you need. The goal is to keep the mood light and cheerful and the pace brisk.
Counter to conventional wisdom, if something cannot be handled in a given pass, set it aside and be willing to return to it in a later pass! The important point is do not stall out. You do not want to get stuck. Keep moving!
First pass: Into the recycling bin! When the daily mail arrives, there is usually some value in doing an immediate session to pitch out what you can. I usually toss these into a paper bag for the recycling.
Second pass: Does this require action? A quick sort of envelopes into three piles for business or personal mail requiring action, and things that are interesting but can wait. The mildly interesting pile should be kept to a limited amount, perhaps by giving it a basket of its own.
Third pass: Envelopes must go! Open up all the envelopes. This takes a shocking amount of time for the stacks that require action. Your stacks will also be smaller and less scary if you flatten them out and get rid of the extra bulk of the envelopes. Use a letter opener and some zippy music to keep the process from bogging down.
Fourth pass: Thank goodness for automation! Separate out the automatic payment statements for things that have already been paid. Separate out the investment statements. Here you are looking for things that you can quickly review, remove from the stack and file.
Fifth pass: Handle the manual payments. Pay bills for ad hoc transactions and file them.
Sixth pass: Make changes, phone calls, and clean up your messes. Much will be accomplished here in pass six! Call back anyone that needs to be called. Accounts that you are canceling. Issues that need to be resolved. Changes that you want to make to services. Appointments that you want to make. Orders that need to be placed. As each thing is resolved, file it or pitch it.
Seventh pass: Shred the Riff Raff. Shred the unwanted offers. You know the stuff... credit offers, bank checks to "improve your cash flow." Stuff that just has no reason to be kept, but that is not safe these days to pitch into the recycling bin.
Eighth pass: Time sensitive events. Keep invitations and announcements for concerts, conferences, networking opportunities or other time sensitive events around in case you want to go someplace and do something. Every so often you will still need to sift out the things that have gone by.
Ninth pass: Thanks for the memories. Things that you want to look at and think about. It is pleasant to look at the theatre playbill for a while after a night out on the town-o. Eventually, these need to go into permanent storage, or into a scrap book, or into the recycling, depending on your level of interest in them. Give each matter only the attention that it deserves.
Tenth pass: A little light reading. You may find a quick dip into the mildly interesting pile makes a suitable reward for completing any of these stages. A stroll through a catalogue or magazine prior to pitching it out is pleasant. It does sometimes send you back to the sixth pass. When you reach the limit of what your mildly interesting basket can hold, tackle it in its own pass. Read what strikes you as interesting, and then pitch whatever is outdated. If something is very interesting, rip out the relevant pages from the magazine, and file it. You don't have to keep the whole magazine.
Not all of this necessarily needs to be done each and every day, but some of it can be done each and every day. To the extent that you keep the sifting process flowing, the mountain of paper sitting next to you will accumulate more slowly, even if it never completely disappears. The process can be less daunting if you avoid becoming overwhelmed in your daily paper handling routine. Remember that there are papers that are simply interesting, important to keep, and worth looking at more than once. Your goal is to keep and distill the best stuff over time.
Copyright @ 2009, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc., developer of Life Balance™ software for Mac OS X, Windows, Palm OS and iPhone. Life Balance provides a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time. To learn more, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/
