Radical paperwork optimisation – An example.

All clients who have applied my radical approach so far confirm that the unconventional order of the work – first organising, then decluttering (read more about that here) – has made things easier for them.

They successfully dispose of a lot – usually more than 50% – of their physical papers and digital information and data.

Are you curious about the application of the radical paperwork optimisation process in real life?

Let’s have a look at a (very simplified) example:

Imagine you sit in front of a 20-cm-high pile of papers.

Before you sat down to confront the pile, you had already decided what information you considered to be ‘very important’ to you from now on.

(This is a very personal decision that only you can make. For example, I might decide that all the birthday cards I ever received are still very important to me, while you decide that from now on, only the cards from the most recent year are very important to you.)

You are determined to pick only those pieces that meet your various ‘very important’ criteria from the pile and get them organised by storing them in a designated place (Example: All birthday cards will go into a small box.). Anything else will go into the recycle bin.

Now, you take paper after paper in your hands and immediately decide if you will keep it.

Making the decision about each piece of paper is simple (although it’s still not always easy) because you must answer only one question:

‘Is it very important to me now?’

And since you have already clearly defined what’s important in advance, providing the ‘right’ answer is not complicated.

Your paper pile is quickly shrinking. And the recycle bin next to your chair is getting fuller and fuller. 😉