At the end of last year I looked at the benefits of starting a Tickler System. Something you can add to this to make it even more effective is what I call ‘Do, Delegate, Ditch’. This refers to the three main options you have when dealing with paper and correspondence.
Being organised means having a place for everything. What you need now are series of trays or receptacles and a bin. Yes, a bin is a valid part of your filing system!
Your main tray or box is simply labelled IN. Put everything into this one in-tray. Don’t look at it, just put it in there. Every office should have one and every home should have one. Place it somewhere where everyone knows where to find it. Having one place where everything should go means that every document is then captured by the system and processed accordingly. Whether it’s a company report at work, or a letter your children have brought home from school, if everyone knows where all documentation should go, the system will work.
When you are ready to look at your IN tray/box, go and take everything out of it. Ideally, things shouldn’t remain in your IN tray/box for more than 24 hours, unless you are away. When you pick up a piece of paper, you actually have five options to choose from.
Ditch It
Do you really need it? Ask yourself, how will this piece of paper improve my life? Does it help me to achieve my own personal goals? If you have no need for it now, then throw it away. Don’t think: it may come in handy in the future. If you don’t need it now, get rid of it – throw it in the bin!
Delegate It
All too often, we assume that because something is addressed to us then we are the ones who have to do it. Wrong! If you write a letter of complaint to the Chief Executive of a company, do you think he’ll be the one to investigate your complaint? No, it will be delegated, and you should do the same. Look at the document and ask yourself if you are the best person to tackle this request, or can you delegate it to someone else?
Do It
If a document relates to something we should be doing, we should do it. But the process is not as simple as that. If the document relates to something simple, that can be actioned within a couple of minutes, then do it, and do it now. Get it processed. If the document doesn’t need to be processed now, perhaps because it relates to an event in the future (business meeting, medical appointment, family get-together) then you can file the paperwork in the right date/month section of your tickler system.
Everything else that remains in this tray, therefore, is stuff that needs to be actioned today, but will take more than a few minutes.
Read/Review
In this tray, put everything that you will want to read or look through at some point in the future. This includes items such as magazines, reports, brochures and catalogues. There is no urgency to read these items today (if there is, then you need to put them into your ‘Do It’ tray). To make efficient use of your time, this is the stuff you grab when you know you’re going to be sitting doing nothing for a while.
File It
This is not the same as ‘File 13’, also known as the waste paper bin or the shredder! Paperwork in this tray needs to be filed because it has to be kept for a long time. For example, bank statements, personal documents, utility bills, financial documents and contracts are just some examples. This is not your filing system but the tray in which to place paper that needs filing, when you have time to do it (or someone else, if you can delegate it).
It’s quite possible that a document will pass through a couple of your trays. For example, it may flow from your IN tray into your Do It tray, where you then file it in your tickler system for a later date. On that date, the document will come out of your tickler system, back into your Do It tray. After you have actioned it, you may decide that the document can be binned. Or perhaps it needs filing – so you place it in your File tray. From your File tray it will then go into your filing system.
At first, this may sound like a lot of moving paper around into different trays but, in practice, it isn’t. What this system does is ensure that every piece of paper is in the right place at the right time. Instead of having piles of paperwork teetering on the edge of a desk, or thrown across a sofa, you have a series of trays, and as soon as you look at each tray, you know exactly what needs to be done with the contents.
Missing deadlines, failing to pay bills or spending hours searching for paperwork that you can’t find is stressful. So why not adopt this system – I promise it will make life easier. This is just one of the great tips for improving your life and keeping your stress levels under control that you’ll find in our Effective Time Management Course. And to make it easier we’re offering a £25 discount if you enrol before 3rd April.
Author: Diana Nadin
