Stay organised & avoid that filing headache

Organisation is the key to staying productive and as we head into the second quarter of the financial year,  it’s time to get your office sorted & make the rest of the year a streamlined process & stay one step ahead of that dreaded “filing”.

When it comes to paper filing, have a clearly labelled tray for your filing & at the end of the week dedicate 30 minutes to filing & ensure everything is filed before you finish for the week.  This will ensure that first thing Monday morning you start the week with an empty tray with no excess paperwork clogging up your workspace.

Tips for organising your paperwork

Colour Coded Paper Files
Whether you are filing using lever arch folders or a lateral filing system, colour coding your files is a great way to easily identify your files.

Choose a colour for each department or admin section & be consistent across both systems.  e.g.Accounts – Blue, IT – Green, Advertising – Purple.  This way if you are on the run & need to grab a file, you can easily identify where it is by the colour of what you are after.

Electronic Filing
Whether you are using dropbox, google drive or your own cloud based filing system, the key to productivity is knowing where your files are.

• Create clear structured folders which include plenty of sub-folders to help keep things specific.
• Give files logical  names & include dates in file names where possible.  The goal when naming files is to be able to tell what the file is about without having to open it & look.
• Be consistent with your approach & whatever you do stick with it to ensure your files are easily located when needed.