March, 2010

As a professional organizer, I want to communicate how organizing makes life simpler. I often speak at community events in libraries, Mom’s groups, and civic organizations. Most often I am asked to talk about organizing home or office spaces. However, during the closing Q&A portion, someone inevitably chimes in with, “What am I supposed to do with all the paper I am bombarded with?”

I have to laugh. Never do I say what I am thinking, “I could have spent the last hour giving you a system to help with that.” Instead I ask for one specific area where paper is a problem and try to give a tip or two.

We all struggle with the ubiquitous paper piles.

The piles pop up everywhere – in the kitchen, on the dining room table, on our desk in the office or at home. These are some startling facts about paper that do not even surprise us anymore:

• The world consumes five times more paper now than in 1950.
• Each person in the United States uses approximately 750 pounds of paper each year. This equals approximately 187 billion pounds per year.
• The average American receives 49,060 pieces of mail in their lifetime; 1/3 of it is junk mail.
• The United States annually consumes 4 million tons of copy paper, 2 billion books, 350 million magazines and 25 billion newspapers.

Perhaps the most telling statistics about the proliferation of paper are those describing the meteoric rise of the paper shredding industry.

In 1982 there were about two dozen document shredding companies. That number grew to between 500 and 600 in 2002 according to the Petersburg Times, Feb 2002.

As of 2008, the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) reported that document shredding was a $1.2 billion a year industry in the U.S. and is growing at a rate of 35 percent per year. NAID membership grew from 150 to more than 1,000 in the span of five years. (Sacramento Bee, May 2008)

What does this rise in paper generation mean on a day-to-day basis?

The average desk worker has 36 hours of work on his or her desk and spends 3 hours per week sorting piles trying to find the project to work on next. (Richard Swanson, The Overload Syndrome)

The paper piling problem is not limited to the average Joe or Jill.

Studies have shown that some executives will pick up a single piece of paper from their desk thirty or forty times before acting on it. “Don’t use your desk as a storage place for items awaiting action. If you can’t dispense with it immediately, at least keep a follow-up pile.” (Michael Woolery, Seize the Day)

Without a plan, paper will win.

We can be overwhelmed, finding ourselves debating which information to act on first, crippled by visual and mental clutter. The best defense is a good offense. These are three strategies every office and household must plan and carry out to eliminate paper piles.

1. Establish a paper flow system with standard operating procedures (SOP) for the three main categories: reference, action, and junk. When you make decisions ahead of time on how to deal with incoming information, you don’t have to think so hard or reinvent what to do with that everyday-the-same-old-stuff paperwork.
   Get more in depth instruction and a step-by-step system to get the mountain of paper under control with the e-Book [intlink id="1090" type="page" target="_blank"]7 Must Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever![/intlink]
2. Schedule regular times for follow-up activities. Some actions are never ending: to phone, to write, to email, to delegate, to discuss. Make standing appointments with yourself to “bundle” like actions into one time slot for completion. This approach can save you a bundle of time!
3. Reduce the volume of incoming paper as much as possible. Let friends and colleagues know you much prefer an email to a written note or a phone call (where you have to take notes.) Cancel magazines and newspapers you do not read.
   Use these websites to cut down on unsolicited advertising and credit offers:
   • Reduce Unwanted Mail – (1) http://www.catalogchoice.org/, (2) http://www.reduce.org [junk mail]
   • Stop Unwanted Credit Offers – http://www.optoutprescreen.com

The information age has changed the way we think and live. Like any tool, ready access to information can be a good thing when we are careful to wisely regulate its use. Take steps now to implement these three strategies to be more productive… and to maintain your sanity!