Have you ever sat down at the kitchen table with the day’s mail and started sorting it into piles? • bills (you always recognize those first!),

• “to read” pile (that’s always the tallest),

• stuff to go in the wastebasket (but that’s on the other side of the room),

• papers to discuss with your significant other (who isn’t there at the moment), and finally

• “I don’t even know how I got this” pile (but you really want to read it!)

Then the phone rings -- or the kids come in -- or it’s time to go to a meeting. By this time, you can’t remember which pile is which, and you don’t have time to think about it – so you scoop it up into a bigger pile and put it in the bay window. This goes on all week – in a different place each time! Saturday night you have company coming – and you certainly don’t want your friends and colleagues to think you’re disorganized, so you stuff everything in a drawer…or under the bed.

If you can identify with this scenario, you’re not alone. Research shows the average person spends 150 hours per year looking for misplaced information! Certainly nothing creates a crisis in a household faster than when your 15-year-old needs a copy of his birth certificate to get into driver’s Ed class – or the IRS wants proof of that $200 deduction you took on your taxes three years ago –and you can’t find it.

Are you looking for a way to stop this endless cycle of clutter and crisis – and be able to find what you want (and better yet, let other members of the family find what they need themselves!)? Here are some principles to help you “attack the stacks!”

Today’s mail is tomorrow’s pile. Don’t worry about the piles from yesterday – they’ll take care of themselves in time. Your road to success starts by establishing a “paper management center” in your house – a place to put new papers where you will go regularly to manage your mail. Caution: Make sure it is a place you like to be! If you pay bills and make phone calls while you’re cooking or watching the kids, a corner in the kitchen may be best – but if you only work in solitude, creating a cozy office in a corner somewhere may be more effective. Eliminate everything from your paper management center except what you know you will use.

Clutter is postponed decisions?. The key to your new system is to decide now! As you take papers out of your “In Basket”, remember The FAT System?. There are only three decisions you can make: File, Act, or Toss. In other words, if you want to eliminate the “fat” from your desk and your like, think “FAT”!

Instead of taking papers out of your “In Basket” and putting them back again without making a decision, ask yourself, “What’s the worst possible thing that would happen if I didn’t have this piece of paper?” If you can live with your answer, toss the paper!

Practice The Art of Wastebasketry? Determine whether you want to keep each piece of paper at all by asking yourself these Art of Wastebasketry? questions: 1. Does this require any action on my part? 2. Does this exist elsewhere? 3. Is this information recent enough to be useful? 4. Can I identify specific circumstances when I’d use this information? 5. Are there any tax or legal implications? If you answer “No” to all the above questions, but are still not comfortable throwing something away, ask one last question: 6. What is the worst possible thing that could happen if I did not have this information? If you can live with your answer, toss – or recycle it – and live happily ever after!

Half of any job is using the right tool. A major factor in your success at attacking your stacks will be using the right tool. Here are some essentials:

1. A wastebasket/recycle bin – or shredder, if you’re concerned about confidentiality.

2. An “In Basket” to hold mail and other papers you haven’t look at yet.

3. An “Out Basket” for papers you need to take someplace else.

4. A “To File Basket” for papers you need to put in your reference filing cabinet at a later time.

5. A calendar for scheduling your time and tracking other family member’s schedules.

6. A Rolodex (or computer program such as Outlook) for managing names and contact info.

7. A small plastic file box (without a lid!) designed to hold a dozen or so hanging files for papers requiring your action.

8. A filing cabinet for reference files, which can be located outside your paper management center.

Create a “Finding System” Does just the idea of filing give you knots in your stomach? Not surprising – most filing systems don’t work! Why? Because the same information can be filed under “Car”, “Auto” “Vehicle” or “Chrysler” – and it’s highly unlikely that any two family members would agree on what to name a file, much less be able to remember it when they want to find it later.

The solution to this age-old problem: A File Index – a list of the names of your files. You can create a File Index as a word processing document – or you can use Taming the Paper Tiger software (www.thepapertiger.com) to generate an alphabetical list of your files automatically. (The system is so simple, your kids can help you file!)

From Ideas to Action But what about those papers that do require your action? Bills to pay, phone calls to make, things to discuss with another family member. Some projects may require a folder of their own, such as “PTA Fundraiser” or “New York Trip.”

Often we shuffle papers from one side of the desk to the other because there are so many things that need to be done. To solve this problem, create an Action File System for recurring activities. To identify what Action Files you need, ask the question, “What is the next action I need to take?” Never mind that there are several things you need to do! Just file the papers according to the next action. Typical answers include:

• Call
• Calls Expected
• Data Entry
• Discuss with …
• Errands
• On-Line
• Pay
• Photocopy
• Write

Put these Action Files in a desktop file holder, along with the current projects you are working on, so you will have a visual reminder. This system encourages effective time management – when you are making one phone call, you can often squeeze in another one – since all the papers requiring phone calls are in one place. Afraid you’ll forget to look in the file? Make a note in your calendar on the day you need to take the action.

Does this system guarantee that your kitchen table with never be piled with papers? Hardly! But you will be able to clean up the clutter quickly, and know exactly where to put it. Your ability to accomplish anything is directly related to your ability to find the right information at the right time. Happy paper taming!

Љ Barbara Hemphill is the author of Kiplinger's Taming the Paper Tiger at Work and Taming the Paper Tiger at Home and co-author of Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter-Free Forever. The mission of Hemphill Productivity Institute is to help individuals and organizations create and sustain a productive environment so they can accomplish their work and enjoy their lives. We do this by organizing space, information, and time. We can be reached at 800-427-0237 or at www.ProductiveEnvironment.com