Practical paper management.(REQUIRED READING)

The average executive wastes an hour a day looking for important papers, totaling more than six weeks annually. Based on a $120,000 annual salary, the cost of this search is $15,000. (1)

Not only are there direct costs for this frantic paper search, there are indirect costs as well. Mismanaged paper produces the following indirect detrimental costs:

* Damaged credibility * Personal stress * Interpersonal tension * Diminished competence * Lack of confidence * Stymied productivity

All of our resources are gifts to be managed with purpose. Our resources include our time, our environment, our possessions, and even the documents that record and reflect our life activities. It is a rare person who has complete control over their environment, their time, and their paper. The flow, capture, and retrieval of paper cause more angst and confusion for people than any other area of organizing need.

In fact, every client with whom I work with needs help managing their paper, in varying degrees. Some just need a system to capture their incoming paper. Some lack a filing system, so permanent papers have no destination. We pile because we don't file.

Consider the time you will spend setting up effective paper management systems as an investment in your sanity. It costs $30 to property file a document, $120 in additional tabor costs if the document is misfiled, and $250 to recreate a lost document. (2)

In the corporate world, I've observed that there are at least four paper management systems my clients seem to need. They include a paper processing system, a current or pending projects system, a refer or delegate system, and a filing system. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of customizing each system to the roles, thinking patterns, habits, and work style of each client. I extensively interview each client in their unique environment to discover their individual needs. Systems that are imposed tend to hinder a person's productivity, and may eventually be abandoned. Systems that are intuitive to the individual are easy for the client to use and maintain.