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Podcast Episode 15 — Creating a Filing System for Your Everyday Paperwork
Do you have a filing system?
I’m not talking about having files for everything. I’m talking about having a system for HOW you deal with and file your paperwork.
Let me tell you a quick story. There was a TV show I used to watch with my mom, and one day one character was telling another that she had gotten engaged. The person being told said “Oh, let me go get you my file that I had for all of my wedding stuff.” The first said, “You had a file for your wedding?” And the second responded, “I have file for everything.”
My mom turned to me and said “It’s YOU!”
She wasn’t wrong. I used to have a file for everything. And I mean everything. I have since learned that I don’t need to keep every single piece of paper that comes my way, and I developed a system to help me only keep what’s absolutely necessary. This does two things: First, it keeps things from being too cluttered — I don’t have piles of papers everywhere waiting to be filed, and second, it keeps my file cabinet from becoming too stuffed with unnecessary junk.
Here are the three rules I follow that make up my system for deciding whether or not to keep paperwork.
- Does the paper exist somewhere else? Meaning, if I really needed a copy of it…
