Calling Nurse Stelter!

Attorney, librarian, neat freak. That's Sandy Stelter of Benicia, California. Stelter helps high-tech pack rats tidy up their computers - right down to the last kilobyte of storage space. She charges between $50 and $75 an hour for an office visit. For us, however, she's giving away three of her most valuable secrets.

Call for Backup

Don't even think about giving your computer a spring cleaning without first copying all the data on it. Backing up saves you from losing a file - and it forces you to swamp out your hard drive. The effort of deciding which files to back up, says Stelter, will yield dozens of items that belong in the trash.

Learn to Say Goodbye

Discard old files and programs that you no longer use. Don't delete only the obvious files. If you use fax-modem software, your hard drive is probably cluttered with old faxes, which suck up vast amounts of disk space. Also, cull through email - and don't limit yourself to the inbox. Stelter regularly trashes copies of old outgoing mail.

Fill the Manila

Most operating systems make it easy to sort data into file folders - though few people do it the right way. Stelter's advice: Create new folders for each major project - and folders within the folders for each task within a project. Then use a directory such as Windows Explorer to display a visual "tree" showing each stage of the work. "Put these folders on your desktop," she advises, "and you'll find them at a glance."

Article from Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/13/harddrive.html

Junk mail is advertising that arrives in your postal mailbox along with the mail you really want or need. It's impossible to eliminate all of it, but you can substantially reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. You can of course, toss, tear, or shred it once it arrives. But let's stop it from reaching our mailbox in the first place.

How did I get on these lists in the first place?

Is GETTING ORGANIZED on your list of things to do someday? Do colleagues joke about your messy desk or piles of junk? Do you waste time looking for important files or documents? Is "I know it's here somewhere!" your rallying cry?

Futurists of the 1970s and 80s promised a "paperless office." Yet annual sales of file cabinets leaped 29% between 1991 and 1994. What happened?

Computers happened. Printers, faxes, copiers, and e-mail happened. Decreased costs and increased ability to customize through desktop publishing software has resulted in a deluge of paper-based documents.

Experts say that a lack of organization in any business from home-based consulting firms to major corporations can exact tolls in lost productivity. But on a deeper level, disorganization can be a source of incredible stress that smothers creativity and brings feelings of anxiety and loss of control. In subtle ways, more energy can be spent dealing with the piles of letters, memos, and other papers than on nurturing the business.

So how do you know if your business has a problem with disorganization? There no single definition given. But if you have trouble finding a needed invoice, letter or computer file within a modest span of time, say three to five minutes, something's not right. Another question to ask is: Could somebody else find this paper if I were gone?

Despite hopes for the paperless office, we're actually being inundated with more paper than ever before. Several methods are used by professional organizers, such as the "TRASH" system for processing paper: