THL SECTION: C2O WITH KAREN HENKE: ARTICLES:
Four Iron Clad Rules of Paper Management
Four Iron Clad Rules of Paper Management
1) Store all paper together. When you have bills scattered about on the dining room table, kitchen counter and the end table you are more likely to forget to pay them, or you may misplace or lose them.
- Create a Bill Box to hold all of your bill paying information and supplies.
- Family information binders are a handy way to consolidate all of the forms related to school, sports, church and extracurricular information. Or set up a planning center with one family calendar and in-boxes for every family member.
- Keep recipes in a three-ring binder. Include a section devoted to recipes-to-try.
2) Deal with things immediately.
- Touch paper once is a technique I learned in office management years ago. This single step will save you hours of lost time.
- Open mail and act on it. Toss junk mail into the recycling bin, shred what needs to be shredded, put bills to be paid in their slot or spot, and add magazines and catalogs in the to-be read basket.
- Route mail to the appropriate person. This can be as simple as laying mail on each person’s placemat or creating a bin or file. The secret is to have a consistent place for individuals to find their mail.
- Make it a habit to toss magazines on recycling day. That way you will avoid having baskets full of unread magazines. And the task will not be as daunting if you stay on top of it.
- RSVP immediately. Decide if you will attend weddings and parties right away. File the invitation in your paper flow system. (For our family that’s the Family Information binder.) That way you can reference it easily.
3) Never place a large item on top of a smaller item. For instance, if you leave a newspaper spread out on the table it can camouflage car keys or a school form. If you lay a piece of paper over a post-it note, it can be hidden or reattach to the paper and be lost.
4) If you don’t act on it right away…you probably won’t . How many times has this happened to you? You save piles of stuff: coupons to clip, articles to read, stuff to process, all things that require decisions. And after moving the piles around for days you take the time to sort through it and realize you really weren’t interested in the stuff after all?!
- Trust that if it was important, you will find the information again.
- Jot down the title of the magazine article in case you want to reference back. Many times you can look the article up online.
- Know that you don’t have to keep every recipe. If you don’t try the recipe within a month, you probably won’t. Instead of storing stacks of recipes torn from the pages of magazines, look up recipes as you need them. Try www.allrecipe.com.
- If you hate to clip coupons and forget to bring them with you to the store, give up. Yes, stop saving the flyers in the hopes that you will become a coupon shopper. Some of us are just not “cut out” for this task. Give yourself a break.
Copyright 2007 Come2Order
Karen Henke is the owner of Come2Order in Minneapolis, MN. Visit www.come2order2day.com and request a free Time-Savers Kit which is loaded with time-saving tips and services. And sign up for a subscription to the free monthly newsletter.