One of the primary productivity principles on which the Productive Environment Institute operates is "Today's mail is tomorrow's pile". Recently, I've had several experiences and conversations which demonstrated the significance of this principle and how it affects organizing paper. Listen as I share how a SYSTEM that helps you to avoid tomorrow's pile. Podcast Duration: 03:48 (MM:SS)

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Podcast Transcript

As I hope you know by now, I’m all about SYSTEMs Remember the acronym: Saving You Space Time Energy and Money? Whenever you run into a stumbling block in accomplishing your work or enjoying your life, there’s undoubtedly a need for a system -- whether it’s a system for paying bills, organizing your taxes, clearing the clutter off the kitchen counter, or moving your organization to less paper or following up with prospects. Whenever there isn't a system, there is clutter! When you get sick of the clutter, the immediate temptation is to start getting rid of the clutter, and while it is important to do that, it is even MORE important to design a SYSTEM so that it doesn't happen again.

So let’s look at an example at home. Is your kitchen counter frequently cluttered with paper which causes frustration and family arguments? Certainly you can just clean it up, but without addressing why and how it got there, and what you can do to prevent it from happening again -- that is, create a SYSTEM -- you are actually wasting your time, because in a few weeks, you’ll be doing the same thing all over again!

The same thing happens at the office. Last week I spoke with a prospect whose company is merging several offices in different buildings into one office. One of the big challenges is the fact that there are literally millions of paper documents which they don’t plan to move to the new headquarters, but are not sure what to do with them, and they were asking for my help. I agreed, but only under one condition: Before we start dealing with the old documents, we put a SYSTEM in place to manage the new ones. Otherwise, the messes we clean up will be right back, and they will have the same problem again.

Today I talked to someone who has over 12,000 emails in her In Box. (By the way, the average number according to Microsoft is 3000!) She was complaining about the difficulty in cleaning them out. My first question was “What have you done to prevent that from happening in the future?”

So here’s my challenge for you this week! What roadblocks are you experiencing when it comes to accomplishing your work and enjoying your life where you can apply Today’s Mail Is Tomorrow’s Pile?

If you’d like to learn more detailed tips on organizing and managing paper, then my book Organizing Paper @ Home: What To Toss and How To Find the Rest! is just what you need. Visit organiziningpaperathome.com to order your copy today. Post your comments or questions in the comments area of this episode at barbarahemphill.com If you like this podcast and think a friend or colleague can benefit from it please share it with them using the Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn buttons on the podcast page on my website.” Until next week, I’m Barbara Hemphill. Thanks for listening!

Photo Credit: Zena C