Dealing with Paperwork...

Here’s a great article on how to best keep your paperwork under control.



One of the biggest challenges I have as a PhD student has been maintaining control of my paperwork and keeping it organized. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was originally trying to stay as paperless as possible, but have found that to be much more difficult than I originally thought. (I actually managed to do that fairly well in my MBA program and thought I’d be able to do that again. Of course all our profs there e-mailed us the notes in Power Point before we met for class…)

Between taking notes with equations and graphs, getting tons of academic articles to read, handouts, homework assignments, etc. – managing paper has become a big part of my life now in a way it never has before. As a result, I’ve been on the lookout for ideas to better manage my files.

Here are few key ideas that I have found to be helpful:

• Use single colored file folders without alternating tabs (in other words get folders that are have tabs either all on the right, all on the left or all in the middle, rather than trying to keep them alternating).
• Buy a label maker and use it on your file folders. It makes them look much nicer and gets you in the habit of keeping things organized. Keep it in easy reach so you’re likely to use it.
• Keep a good supply of empty, unmarked folders so you can make a new file folder when you need it.
• Try to avoid putting things into different sections (school, finance, etc.). Instead, just have one big set of files in alphabetical order. (“Taxes 2005” goes under “T” and “Microeconomics Homework” goes under “M”, etc.) This makes them much easier to organize and retrieve files. (If you operate a business or file lots of paper for a specific reason, it may make sense to have more than one set of files, but try to keep this to a minimum.)

I got a lot of these ideas out of David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”, which is chock-full of great ideas on how to be more productive. Allen’s ideas have gained quite a following and have been the inspiration for websites like Merlin Mann’s 43folders. Definitely a site worth checking out!

Question: What ideas have you found that help you stay organized?