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2/24/2000
Get
It Together
-
by Liz Kelley Kerstens, CGRS
This
columns is posted on the Clooz.com Web site with
permission of
MyFamily.com. The
column was originally posted on the Ancestry.com
Web site.
Filing is Continuous
Two weeks ago, I discussed filing
your reference papers and left you working on getting that
file cabinet organized. I hope you’ve made progress. I’d
like to share a couple organizing tips with you to help
ease some of the organizing burden.
First, when you put a tab on the
hanging folder, make sure that you put it on the front
edge instead of the back edge. Doing this will ease your
filing process just a bit by allowing you to grab the tab
and insert the paper you’re filing into the front of the
file. This will keep your most current documents in front
and will save a bit of motion when filing a lot of papers.
Second, don’t feel like you
have to catch up on all of your filing in one attempt.
Progress is the important thing here. If you are waiting
for a phone call or for someone to pick you up, grab a
small stack of papers and file them. If you use your
available minutes in this manner, you’ll quickly see
progress and will feel a tremendous sense of
accomplishment as your paper piles start to diminish.
Third, make a filing goal and try
to stick to it. Your goal might be that by the end of each
week you want all "to be filed" documents filed.
If you set a goal that is attainable, then you can
gradually work toward accomplishing that goal. Better yet,
write down the goal on a sticky note and put it on your
computer monitor so you can be regularly reminded of the
goal you’ve set.
Fourth, if you have a piece of
paper in your hand and you know exactly where it goes,
sometimes it’s quicker to just file it right then. Don’t
worry about the other papers in the "to be
filed" area; it’s ok to sneak in a document once in
a while so that you don’t have to look at that document
again.
Fifth, remember that you really
don’t need to keep everything that comes into your house
paperwise. When you’re deciding the destination for a
piece of paper, give it a critical analysis and decide if
you’re going to need it for legal or tax purposes, or if
you can really just throw it away.
Sixth, if you receive meeting
announcements, try to enter them into your calendar system
right away and throw away the piece of paper. Make sure to
capture the important elements, i.e. date, time, place,
directions to get there, and point of contact and phone
number. By making the effort to enter these items right
away, you’ve done yourself several favors. You’ve
eliminated a piece of paper, you’ve put the information
in the proper place, and you’ve ultimately saved
yourself time in hunting for the document when you need
it.
Seventh, in your filing system,
don’t use the term "Miscellaneous." Your files
need to be specific enough for you to be able to retrieve
paper when you need it. The word miscellaneous is not
descriptive enough to help you with anything other than
collecting papers that will never be looked at again. Do
yourself a favor and stay away from such an ambiguous
category.
Now it’s time to do some more
filing. Next week I’ll talk specifically about filing
your genealogical documents.
Elizabeth Kelley
Kerstens, CGRS,
is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing,
editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’
newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the
electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a
frequent contributor to Ancestry. She can be
reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com.
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