A-Z Filing: A Surprising Relief

I used to dread the mail. It was not uncommon for me to spend an hour or more on a Sunday afternoon going through a box of mail and paperwork that had accumulated throughout the past week or so. Then I read the GTD article on General Reference Filing. I bit the bullet one rainy Saturday, made a trip to the office supply store and then sat down with my files, labeler, and large pile of papers to give this a try.

I picked up a piece of paper, say my phone bill, and the first name that popped into my head is how I labeled the file: Verizon. As David likes to say in his seminars, (paraphrasing) "Could it be filed under 'P' for phone bill? Yes it could. Could it be filed under 'V' for Verizon? Yes it could. Could it be under anything else? Probably not."

Before, when I had elaborate schemas of sections and sub-sections within my files it got to a level of complexity that I literally just started throwing paper into a box to file on rainy days; it was just too much effort.

Now, I can get home from work, grab the mail on my way in the door, and have it all filed in the appropriate place in less than five minutes. The end-to-end workflow path is clear and easy and, not surprisingly, it gets done.

After this worked so well on my paper files at home, I replicated this at work and in my email inbox and network drive filing systems.

Personal Productivity, Time Management, Effectiveness, GTD, Getting Things Done