Piles of post
Aug. 11th, 2019 12:58 pmFor quite a long time I had quite a good system for post, after I set up a filing system a la David Allen's Getting Things Done. Basically, have a file for each company/org that sends you post. When you receive the post, put it straight into the file.
The secret is, if filing it is easy, then it's easy to just do, and if you're behind, you can file a bunch at once.
If there's stuff you need to DO, you can put that in a physical in-tray. Although I just filed it and used a virtual todo list instead.
But since I moved into this house I got behind. Mostly, I think, just that the filing cabinet slowly filled up, and then filing anything became a chore, and when my "willingness to file" fell below "amount of incoming" even a tiny %, then a backlog just slowly mounted up.
I had a few attempts, like separate files for "post to open", "post to process", "post to file". I used to be intimidated by post because I'd often have stuff I hadn't dealt with, and have urgent letters saying "you need to have done this by last year" (not because I had no money, but because I was bad at dealing with post). But one way or another it didn't help.
This weekend, I started a new set of files, basically the same but creating them new for stuff which is "current". And sorted most of the backlog. That was pretty easy. I found one or two important things I'd put aside. And nothing I'd forgotten I shouldn't have.
Because fortunately, my organisation was on top of things enough that a usual amount of reminders was more than enough to get me to do something.
In fact, I weirdly became someone who deals with important things, neither immediately, nor last minute, but a couple of weeks before the deadline, which is about perfect, and better than I ever expected to reach :)
PS.
At some point I need to go and throw out anything I don't need to keep from the old system to make more room. But that got less scary too, when I know realistically what I will need (bank statements, certificates) and what I won't need (all the extra bumf which comes in the envelopes)
The secret is, if filing it is easy, then it's easy to just do, and if you're behind, you can file a bunch at once.
If there's stuff you need to DO, you can put that in a physical in-tray. Although I just filed it and used a virtual todo list instead.
But since I moved into this house I got behind. Mostly, I think, just that the filing cabinet slowly filled up, and then filing anything became a chore, and when my "willingness to file" fell below "amount of incoming" even a tiny %, then a backlog just slowly mounted up.
I had a few attempts, like separate files for "post to open", "post to process", "post to file". I used to be intimidated by post because I'd often have stuff I hadn't dealt with, and have urgent letters saying "you need to have done this by last year" (not because I had no money, but because I was bad at dealing with post). But one way or another it didn't help.
This weekend, I started a new set of files, basically the same but creating them new for stuff which is "current". And sorted most of the backlog. That was pretty easy. I found one or two important things I'd put aside. And nothing I'd forgotten I shouldn't have.
Because fortunately, my organisation was on top of things enough that a usual amount of reminders was more than enough to get me to do something.
In fact, I weirdly became someone who deals with important things, neither immediately, nor last minute, but a couple of weeks before the deadline, which is about perfect, and better than I ever expected to reach :)
PS.
At some point I need to go and throw out anything I don't need to keep from the old system to make more room. But that got less scary too, when I know realistically what I will need (bank statements, certificates) and what I won't need (all the extra bumf which comes in the envelopes)