Of pending files and files that are pending….

In honor of today (March12th) being “National Organize Your Home Office Day” (yes, they really do have a day for just about anything you can think of!) I thought this would be a good opportunity to share some tips on two home office areas that seems to get a lot of people locked up. I have found that people will often Google “organizing your home office” and find a plethora of information – solid, helpful information that walks them through the step by step process of clearing, sorting, filing and ultimately organizing their space. Which is great. For about 3 weeks. And then they find themselves back at square one. It looked wonderful and clean and organized but what they didn’t learn was how to use the space in a way that was consistent with how they live. The ability of the space to function for them – the systems to make it user friendly were missing. So here are a few tips for two home office areas that typically throw people for a loop … filing systems and pending items.

FILES – yes, in fact I did just hear you say “ugh”. For a lot of people who don’t have administrative assistants living in their homes with them, filing systems are the bane of their existence. About a decade ago Lanna Nakone, M.A. identified four basic brain types (the Maintainer, the Harmonizer, the Innovator and the Prioritizer) and guess what … unless you are a Maintainer, traditional organizing systems are not going to work for you! ! Filing systems are the perfect example of this for the majority of people – they’re no fun to set up, they’re no fun to use and they’re no fun to maintain.

So here’s my advice … take a few minutes to really think about what you hate about filing. Is it the institutional folders you’re using? Is it that you hate putting papers into folders? Is it that the system itself is too regimented and makes you feel like you’re suffocating? Filing systems are a great place to think outside the box – as long as they work for you and your brain, they work.

• Use file folders that are colorful and decorative and make you happy. If you have to look at them, they might as well make you smile.
• If you hate folders in general – don’t use them! I have set up more offices using open bins, lined up on a shelf that incoming papers can just be dumped into. Just be sure to somehow label each bin so you can keep them straight.
• When designating categories for your folders or bins, take the time to think about how you think about your papers. Do you think in a linear manner? In a functional manner? Don’t feel that they need to be labeled “house”, “auto”, “medical”, “insurance”, and so on. If you are an extrovert you may think about your papers in terms of relationships and label them based on people and places. An introvert may categorize based on topic. If you are a visual person you may want use pictures or symbols rather than words. Use what works for you.

PENDING ITEMS – People are typically pretty good at figuring out a system for their Action Items. This is not to say that they have mastered time management and getting these Action Items done, but at least anything that is an Action Item is on their radar. It’s usually the Pending Items that get neglected and ignored. Unfortunately a very common dynamic is that Pending Items are not managed properly and by the time they become Action Items they are a little bigger and a little messier than they need to be because proper attention has not been paid to them.

So what exactly is a Pending Item? It is something that is on hold for a period of time – either waiting for you or someone else to turn it into an Action Item. Some items would include a bill that needs to be paid but you have a question about a charge, a school related field trip, getting a referral for a future doctor appointment, a party that is coming up next month. You probably have many more Pending Items than you realize and unless you have a system to handle them, they can become very draining and time-consuming.

• Get in the habit of differentiating between Action Items and Pending Items. Don’t lump them all into one category and make your to-do list unnecessarily long. Take the extra time to think through the item and categorize it correctly.
• Schedule them in your calendar. Stop writing little reminder notes on post-its and strategically placing them around your home/office so you don’t forget. Pick a date that this item will officially become an Action Item and write it in your calendar. Then put any related paperwork in a file, a bin or your day-planner and forget about it until this date.
• As a mom and business owner, I always have a small pile of Pending Items that will become Action Items during the week. What works best for me is to use a plastic step file in a place that I see on a daily basis. I have labeled the slots for each day of the school/work week and then a slot for the week-end.

On Sunday night as I am getting ready for the week I move all items that are Pending for the upcoming week into the appropriate slot when they will become Action Items. On Wednesday morning I grab all of the papers in the Wednesday slot. Ta-da … my Pending Items just automatically became Action Items! No more losing permission slips, no more bills paid late, no more forgetting to mail out birthday cards.

Don’t forget … Being “organized” is all about your systems and routines working for you and how you live, rather than you working to make them fit into your life!