Offering principles and techniques to simplify your life.

BILLS AND MAIL...
• File your mail and bills right when they arrive so they don't get misplaced
• Check each bill and write the total and the date you plan to schedule payment right on the bill's original envelope.
• Put the bill in a holding area where you can see the date.
• Schedule a regular time and have a specific place to actively read through your mail and pay your bills.
• Pay bills at the beginning of each week for bills that are due that week. This way you'll never have too many bills to pay at any one time and the process should be relatively quick.
• Toss those extra advertising inserts that come with your bills
• File your bills immediately after you pay them so you don't have to deal with them again.

TAXES...
• Store tax forms in a single large pocket folder
• Categorize your bills and invoices using envelopes. Make categories that are appropriate for your situation
• Subcategorize things like credit card bills into VISA bills, Mastercard bills, Discover bills, American Express bills, etc. The more you subcategorize the easier it is to find and to document later.
• Label and date the outside of all envelopes
• Put the pocket folder along with all your envelopes into one larger manila envelope (remember to label it with your name and the year) and submit it to your tax accountant.
• When you get it all back, file the large manila envelope with the most recent year first
• Most tax returns and documentation only need to be kept for seven years. Some businesses and professions need to maintain their records indefinitely. Check this out before tossing your tax records.

CHECK REGISTERS...
• Always date your check registers with the range of dates it includes and the range of check numbers it includes --- April 10, 1999 to September 12, 1999, check numbers 1312 to 1418.
• Change registers at the end of each year even if there's room left in the register. It's just easier to keep records by year than to mix years.
• For tax documentation write in who the check is to and what the check is for.
BANK STATEMENTS AND CANCELED CHECKS...
• Reconcile your statement every time you get one.
• Make sure all ATM and service fees are shown on each statement.
• Let the bank keep your canceled checks so you don't have to store them.
• If you ever need to document a payment by check just ask your bank for a copy.
• If you do keep canceled checks, keep them in a separate box in numerical order. Don't keep them with the bank statements.

HOME BUSINESS RECEIPTS...
• Keep your business expenses / receipts in a separate area from your household files. These might include auto repair and maintenance, business entertaining, computer equipment and supplies, continuing education, gasoline, office supplies, parking, photocopying, professional membership fees, publications, rent, telephone, etc.
• Create separate folders or envelopes for each category of business expense.
• Place each receipt or bill in its own folder or envelope immediately as it comes in.
• Every time you put a paid receipt or bill into its folder or envelope write down how much was paid on the front of each envelope or folder.
• For tax purposes simply add up your business expenses which are listed on each folder or envelope.
• Submit a list of expenses to your tax accountant. You won't have to pay them to go through all your receipts

ORGANIZING PHOTOS...
• Sort through boxes and eliminate poor shots.
• Give away or toss photos that have little meaning to you.
• Keep the negatives only if you think you'll need them for additional copies.
• Write a brief description on the outside of the negatives' envelope.
• Don't write directly on pictures. Use an acid-free adhesive label instead.
• Sort photos in chronological order or by categories like "trips".
• If you have many pictures of one event you may want to write a brief description of the event instead of labelling each individual picture.
• Use albums with acid-free paper.
• Consider using three-ring albums which allow you to add pages to them.

SCHEDULING PAPERWORK...
• On a regular schedule, set aside at least one private hour every week for paperwork. This way you'll never get behind.
• Prioritize. First do the financial stuff. Pay your bills, balance your checkbooks, reconcile any investment statements. Next do any paperwork that's left. Write a note to a teacher, fill out an application form, etc.
• File everything away immediately so you don't have to deal with it again.

REDUCING PAPER IN YOUR LIFE ...
• Cut down on the number of bank accounts you have.
• Reduce the number of credit cards you have to one card for personal use and one for business use.
• Cancel some of your more obscure magazine and newspaper subscriptions.
• Pay any bills you can by automatic deduction.
• Write to the following address and ask them to remove you from their direct mail lists: Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9008.

CHANGE YOUR HABITS...
• Don't let even one day go by without making time to put things into their proper places.
• File or pay bills right when you get them. Don't put them down to get lost in the shuffle.
• Respond to invitations and notices as they arrive and mark any dates on a calendar immediately.
• Open your mail near the trash can and toss what you don't need.
• Keep making those tough decisions about what to keep and what to throw away.

Home Office
Step 1:

Create a “cockpit” at your desk.

Set up the tools in your physical space based on frequency of use. The things you use daily should be within hand’s reach. The things you use weekly should be within arm’s reach. “For neither situation does your butt leave the chair,” she says. “When it does, you’ll be gone an average of 20 minutes. And chances are you won’t return with what you went to get.”

Items you use once a month can be in the office space. “It’s now legal to get up,” Davenport says. “But if you use something less than once a month, consider putting it someplace else. You want to create for yourself your own uninterruptible space.”

Step 2:

Create an “air traffic control system.”

Davenport says every worker needs four key tools: an in box, a to-read file, a to-file file and a hot file.

The in box should be emptied and reviewed at least once every 24 hours. ‘That doesn’t mean you do everything. But you have to be reviewing to know which things you’re going to do,” Davenport says.

The to-read file holds noncritical material you’d like to read at some point. “We all get more reading material that we can manage,” she says. “When the file is full, fan it out, pull out the three to five most important things, put those back and throw the rest away. You’re not reading it anyway. It’s just a huge pile of guilt.”

The to-file file is for things that are going out of the cockpit.

And the hot file holds “the files you touch every day or every other day: current clients, current projects or frequently repeated tasks,” Davenport says.

"These four files will solve a lot of the paper mess on people’s desks,” she says.

Another recommendation is stacking trays up to eight high for various piles of papers, such as expense slips, things to take home, things to be copied, future projects and the key files. “Think vertical,” Davenport says.

She recommends a time planner like a Day-Timer to keep track of appointments and to-dos. ‘The method Benjamin Franklin invented 200 years ago is still the best,” she says. “He took a blank diary open to two pages with a place to write things to do and places to go, and a blank page for notes specific to things that will happen or have happened that day.”

Reminders scattered over the desk should go into the time planner, Davenport says.

"The average businessperson has eight systems of keeping track of what they’re doing,” she says. “Some of it’s on the computer, some on the desk, Post-its, phone messages, on the refrigerator, the sun visor. Get it into one place.”


Step 3:

Create a pending file to hold the odd bits, the memos, surveys, dry cleaner slips and other things you plan to deal with at a later date and that don’t have another home. "The trick to the pending file is you never put anything in it that you don’t first write in the planner as a to-do,” she says.

Davenport says she often thinks about Franklin, who wrote that of the 13 virtues he believed were most important in life, being organized (third on the list) was the one he almost couldn’t accomplish.

“For some of us, this is not an easy thing,” she says. ‘The worst part is that most of us can remember a time when leaving something out to remind us worked. But the volume was a 10th of what it is now. We developed patterns and habits and work ethics from the time when it was different, and now we’re insane because we keep doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.”

She says that on the office desk, “every square inch is priceless.” "You’ve got to treasure it; you’ve got to respect it. Every square inch is costing you in productivity. Every desk is messy when you’re working, but it should be clear at the end of the day. The question is, when the lights are out and you go home at night, what does it look like?”