Ten tips to get you started!

1. PAPER: Touch paper (incl. mail) no more than once—two times at most. Act as soon as it hits your hands: either recycle or file it.
2. FILING: Use a 3-file system for incoming paper: file #1 “TO DO,” file #2 “TO FILE,” file #3 “PASS ALONG.” At the end of each day process and empty each folder.
3. EMAIL: Schedule “send and receive” to every 30 or 60 minutes to void the urge to react immediately upon receipt.
4. SCHEDULING: Schedule one or two times per week to handle bills and no-urgent but reoccurring matters.
5. BILL PAY: Contact utilities, banks, and credit card companies to set-up automatic payments or manual online bill paying to save time.
6. E-STORAGE: Store important electronic files and documents online at (for example) www.filesanywhere.com, to free computer hard drive space and make documents available to others via password.
7. MANUALS: Recycle office equipment manuals if the same information is available on-line. Check upon each new purchase.
8. NOTES: Keep one notebook at your desk to jot down phone numbers, to-do items, reminders, etc., to eliminate those little notes. Recycle done pages and start again. It is okay to have multiple pages going at the same time!
9. DESK: At the end of every day, take a few minutes to clean off your desk. Put the next day’s top priority right in the center of your desk. It will make it easier to get a running start the next morning.
10. BACK-UP SYSTEM: Schedule a time once a week to do a back-up of your computer files. If your computer ever crashes, you’ll be glad you did!