Paauwerfully Organized - 10 Tips to Tame the Paper Tiger

10 Tips to Tame the Paper Tiger When You Travel

(adapted from an article written by Barbara Hemphill)

Do you come home from meetings with your briefcase stuffed with expense receipts, phone messages, meeting notes, business cards, and informational material gathered on your trip? You have every intention of following up with your to-do's and using the valuable information you've stuffed into your briefcase. But you arrive home greeted by yet another pile of paper that accumulated while you were gone-and it looks infinitely more urgent than the good intentions in your briefcase. So the pile of papers stays in your briefcase. After several weeks, you get tired of lugging the same papers back and forth between home and the office. You pull it out of your briefcase and stuff everything in a file called "to do."

Half of the battle with paper pile-up is deciding what to do with it. When you are tempted to postpone a decision about a specific piece of paper, Professional Organizer and author Barbara Hemphill suggests that you ask yourself: "What am I going to know tomorrow that I don't know today?" Clutter is postponed decisions!

The other half of the battle is in following through with what you've already decided to do. Use the following tips to help you make decisions and handle follow-up with the papers you gather when you travel:

Remember that there are only three things you can do with paper: file it away for future reference, act on it, or toss it. To make this easier while you are traveling, create some sturdy colored file folders for your briefcase (I like the plastic kind that don't get dog-eared), and label them according to the next action you will take with each. For example:

File
Toss (toss the contents & keep the file)

SOME TYPICAL
ACTIONS:
Call
Data Entry/Business Cards
Mail
Read
Write
To do
Receipts (for expense reimbursement or tax deduction)

Personalize your travel file system with labels that reflect your next "action" steps. Here are photos of what my briefcase travel files look like.

For each piece of paper that requires action, ask yourself: "What is the next action I need to take on this piece of paper? When do I choose to do this by?" Then make a note on your calendar to remind you to follow up.
Remember that 80 percent of what goes in most files is never referenced again. Ask yourself, "What is the worst possible thing that could happen if I throw this away?" If you can live with the results, put it in your "TOSS" file. You can easily toss the contents of this file as soon as you get to the nearest garbage can!
For each piece of paper you choose to file for future reference, ask yourself: "If I need this information again, what word will I think of?" Write this word in the upper right corner and put the paper in your "FILE" folder.
Keep expense reimbursement or tax-deductible receipts together in your "RECEIPTS" file. Write on the back of the receipt any information that is important to note, such as who you had lunch with. It will be easier to record the purpose of the expense when you file it rather than trying to reconstruct it later.
Make a list of specific ideas you plan to implement when you return home, and keep this in your "TO DO" file. Prioritize the list at the end of your trip, and enter reminders of actions you plan to take on your calendar.
Write the date and circumstance on each business card you collect, and keep these together in your "DATA ENTRY" file. If you have promised to follow up in any way when you return home, note your commitment on the card and in your calendar or on your to-do list so you will remember to follow up accordingly. When you get home, put contact information from the business card you want to keep in your Rolodex or in your computer's address book or contact management program.
Carry stationery to write thank-you notes or other quick responses while you are on the road. When you get back home, check you "MAIL" folder and drop it in the mail right away.
Before you leave on a trip, reserve an appointment with yourself for just after returning -- time to go through each of the files in your briefcase and act on them (file, toss, call, contact, mail, data entry, write, submit receipts, etc.).
Keep Post-it Notes in your briefcase so you can write down the next action step to take once you have read something. Also keep and a highlighter pen with you to highlight important information. This will reduce the amount of time you waste re-reading materials to figure out why you decided to keep something and what you decided to do next. For example, if you tear an ad out of a journal so you can request additional information on a product, highlight the phone number and the name of the item you want to call to get more information about.

If you follow these steps when you travel, you will arrive home ready to face the pile of paper that accumulated while you were gone. But even more important, the papers you collected on your trip will be a real resource rather than another pile of postponed decisions.