My husband's cardiologist would strongly disagree with how I started this article, but hang in there with me and you will see where I am going. Organize your files week is an April holiday, but you don't need a holiday to get your files in order! Before you create an organizing plan for your space, evaluate the necessity of removing the backlog. If you have a disaster of an office, you have to get it cleared out and start fresh before you can really make a difference.
Many people get stuck at this point because they get severely overwhelmed with what to do. So many of us were raised with the strategy "only touch a piece of paper once." That is fine advice if you have systems in place, but horrible if you have piles everywhere. There are decisions to make – if you don’t make these decisions the papers end up in a stack on the other side of the room you are working in.
When you are working with a backlog of items, your brain will work faster if you ask yourself 3 questions at a time. No, I do not mean stacking, stuffing or spreading! That is what we do when we have decided to not decide.
Think FAT! It is probably the only place you will ever hear that FAT is a good thing. So, if you want to remove the fat from your desk, think:
File (information you want to keep for reference)
Act (information you need to take action on or delegate)
Toss (items that no longer belong in the room - recycle, toss, shred, donate, etc.)
By going through your piles using F.A.T. you will process information much faster. Since about 80% of what we keep we never reference again, you may find that you have more in that Toss pile than you anticipated.
Once you have used the FAT system, you can then go back to your File and Act categories and work them down into more simple categories. Think of working in a reverse pyramid.
If you would like to know more about how to apply FAT to your space (and life) and we'll help you develop a custom plan just for your situation.
How do you make decisions?
Share your clutter clearing story! Comment in the comment section.
