Beat The Paper Mountain

Wherever you work, it is amazing how easy it is to accumulate paper, even in this age of electronic communications. Take a look at your work area. How much paper work do you have in your in/out tray, on your desk, in your filing cabinet. Like so many of us it might be a case of paper, paper everywhere and ne’er the space to work.

The stress of information overload can be costly in terms of our working peace of mind. The answer? Have a regular purge. Go on – do it! Allow yourself the pleasure and discover how therapeutic it can be.

Each week set aside a special time to throw away (or preferably recycle) all that paper work you no longer need from your trays, desk and cabinets. Keep routinely to this purge time – allocate it in your timetable right now.

If the thought of ditching paperwork fills you with dread – the "Will I/Won’t I Need it Syndrome – always adhere to these guidelines;

i. If newspapers are more than a few days old chuck them – it’s old news now.

ii. Magazines more than 2 weeks old: consign them to the recycle bin; the information will now be out of date.

iii. Memos more than a week old are now history – nobody will remember them anyway.

iv. Invoices, receipts not from the current financial year – destroy with joy: they’re done and dusted.

v. Keep asking yourself, "Do I really need this material?" Studies have shown over 60% of filed material will never be looked at again. If you haven’t looked at it in the last 3 months – bin it.

© HealthChat 2000

Dr. Sims is the Medical Director of FitStop, the UK's foremost group of health and fitness centers, and an expert on matters relating to fitness of body and mind. Having trained as a GP, he now works full-time in health promotion and has written extensively on the subject, including a monthly medical column in Mensa magazine. Dr. Sims was the original Virgin.Net online doctor.

Article courtesy of MediaPeak