Annual Office Clean-Out: The Files

Second in a series . . .

Where did I begin? The file drawer that was packed so tightly I couldn't get a paper in (or out) without a fight.

Tools needed:

• recycling bin
• shredder or container that will be picked up by shredding company
• note pad or computer document to capture ideas & connections that occur as you purge

Step One was planning how many files to purge a day. 6 daily times 22 work days in August = 132 files. That covers all but my client files. I'm willing to wait until next year to tackle them.

Note the pink movable adhesive flag in the photo. That's how I kept track of where I had stopped purging files. It made it easy to know where to begin the next day.

In a large company, each employee would purge their personal files, and each department would assign teams of two to winnow designated sections of shared files.

Step Two was determining how 'deep' to purge. Because of a family illness, I skipped my annual office clean out last year, so I chose to look at each paper in every file this year. Some people look at just the papers in the back (if you consistently file the most recent papers in front, the oldest papers are in the back of each file). The goal is to end up with 3-4 inches of space in a drawer, to allow for file growth until your next purge.

Step Three was to honestly assess the future usefullness of each paper. 80% of what we file, we never look at again; 50% of our files, on average, are duplicates of what's already there.  And the truth is that nowadays, if I want to find a piece of information, I'm much more likely to Google than I am to look in my files.

As I finished a drawer, I placed a removable label (Avery makes these) on the inside front of the drawer, with the date of the purge. If you can't get to all your files this year, it makes it easy to remember where you want to focus next year.

I encourage you to share your tips, discoveries, challenges and triumphs with other readers by adding comments to this post.

to be continued  . . .

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