58. Tear off used pages from your legal pads.
How many legal pads do you have with folded over pages? Folding over pages is a great way to not have to deal with or decide what to do with what is on the pad. It also causes you to … Continued
Tip 57. Have an Inbox on one side of your desk and an Outbox on the other.
Is your Inbox on top of your Outbox? If it is, tell it to get off. The reason many people have an Inbox and Outbox on top of one another is to save desk space. However you won’t need to … Continued
56. Stand when you go through your desk Inbox.
How long does it take you to empty your desk Inbox that is if you do at all? You can empty your Inbox in fewer than five minutes when you stand and use a system versus spending an average of … Continued
54. From your desk Inbox, there are only four places information can go: OATS.
Do you ever pick up a piece of paper in your Inbox and wonder where the silly thing should go? Or do you just kind of leave it alone and never bother it? During the day, everything always goes into … Continued
53. Everything goes into your desk Inbox first.
What do you do with the following? Someone hands you a piece of paper. You write down a phone number. You have papers from a sales appointment you were just on. You have a handout from yet another, boring meeting … Continued
52. Use an Inbox and an Outbox if you use paper.
If you don’t have an Outbox, where do you put a piece of paper that you need to give to someone? (Please don’t say on your desk or your credenza.) If you use paper, you need both an Inbox and … Continued
Tip 51. Process your e-mail messages. Don’t do them.
Does it seem to take just a little bit longer each time you go through your e-mail? Is it because you are getting more e-mails or perhaps because you were never taught how to go through them? There is a … Continued
50. Create file shortcuts in Windows Explorer.
Have you ever found that a file that you frequently use really needs to be stored in a bunch of different places for different things? Say it is a New Client form you use with every new customer you work … Continued
49. If you listen, you will hear it.
Do you have a hard time coming up with Category names to use for the information you store? The job of an executive that I was working with was to come up with the name of her Support Categories as … Continued
48. Your smartphone, paper, e-mail, and computer file names should all match.
Do you use a different system for storing information in your smartphone, paper, computer, and e-mail files? If so, a better method is to use the same information storage system everywhere. Start with your computer. Use only one directory where … Continued