49: 7 Simple Steps to Paper and Digital Organization
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Welcome to episode 49 of Permission to be Messy. I'm your host, JoAnn Krall and today I'm sharing with you my seven simple steps to get your paper and your digital information under control.
Imagine for a moment that all of your information is organized. You can find everything easily that you need with with minimal effort. You're paying bills on time. When tax time comes, everything's ready for you.
An accumulation of paper and digital information can be the cause of a lot of stress and it can also affect our financial health. So if you struggle in either paper or digital, listen as I walk you through my seven step process. I've been using this process with my clients for 18 years and, you know, to be honest, I was doing it with myself before.
It was natural for me to show up at a client who had years and years of paperwork and, they just didn't know where to start and I would just dive in and I would do my natural process. And it wasn't until years later that I realized that it was seven steps that I was following.
And I actually came up with the acronym CHANGES™️. And that acronym CHANGES™️ is how you can remember these steps.
It stands for Collect, Harmonize, Assign, Narrow, Group, Evaluate and then finally Systems. Everybody wants to start with the system when they want to get organized in any area of their life and systems should always be last. I think I've mentioned that before.
Now I'm going to go through each one of these steps. And before I start, I want to tell you that a lot of people will say, why do you just give everybody these steps? And it's because there are many people that can go through it on their own, but those aren't my ideal clients. So I want to share it with you and if, this is something that you can do on your own awesome. I typically find that the people who struggle will get to a point in each one of these stages where they'll have questions. So if that's you, I do have a resource that I'll talk about at the end,
And I'll also share it in the show notes, which you can find at joannkrall.com.
So let's start. Okay. Step one is to collect. This step is really straightforward. It's about gathering everything. However let's specifically talk about paper when I'm talking about collecting for paper. I'm asking you to collect all of the loose papers in your home or office. It's not about pulling things out of filing cabinets, and it's not about going into archive boxes.
This is just about gathering the stuff that's cluttering our space. So we gather up all that paper into one box or bin. You can also, if you don't have a box or a bin, you don't have to go purchase one. You can actually just put it into a corner of your desk or a corner of your room. whatever you have to contain it or to keep it separate. You're going to put it in one spot.
Now, when we're talking about collect for digital files. This is a little bit different. This is more about just taking an inventory and I'm not talking about taking a detailed inventory. It's about getting an idea of where everything is. Approximately. How many files do you have on your hard drive? And what are they? what do you have in Dropbox or Google drive or on an as external hard drive or even floppy disks or, thumb drives, whatever.
It's just about getting an idea of where you're putting things and where you're storing things. So having that inventory will help you when you move on to future steps.
Okay. Step two is to harmonize. I find that a lot of people that help people with paper and digital organization, they tend to skip this one. So as I go through step one, two, and three, you're doing these all right away and they should be fairly simplistic . The first thing let go of your perfectionism. This doesn't have to be done all in one day. And in fact, I really encourage you to chip away at each of these steps, but also. When you're in one step, don't think about the next step.
So you've collected you weren't thinking about what was coming up. Don't think about where things are going to go. What's going to happen. You just collecting everything and then you're moving onto harmonize. You're thinking about, okay, I'm going to let go of perfectionism. I can do this. You're going to chip away, and also in this step we're going to make a plan to stop the inflow of information now for paper, that can be If you don't really need a receipt from something, don't get the receipt or if you can have it put into your email. and you want to reduce the paper do that um getting bills digitally.
Now, of course, this is going to make your digital clutter go up and your, but your paper going down, but think about where it's most comfortable for you to have things. it's about eliminating junk mail or reducing junk mail.
And then for digital it's, it's about reducing the amount of files that you download, reducing the amount of emails that you subscribed to. And really thinking about what you're saving, screenshots on your computer, or just any information that you're bringing in that you're keeping digitally. Think about from this day forward. Every time you go to put something on your computer, think, do I really need this? Am I going to look at it? Is it something that I need to have? So just reducing that will help.
Two other things to do in the harmonize. Is to, think about what you're going to do with all your shredding. Maybe you have a shredder, or are you going to use a shredding service? So you want to have a container to put all of that stuff in so that you can bring it to a shredding facility.
That's a really important thing. And then important documents. Having a place for important documents, whether you have a fire or flood safe in your home or maybe you get a safe deposit box at your bank for things that you don't readily need.
You want to make sure that your important documents are kept safe.
The third step is to assign. We want to make sure that we have a place for all new incoming stuff. So that we're not mixing a name with all of the stuff that we've collected. So for paper, you want to have some sort of an inbox that in your home, typically things that will go in there is anything that you're bringing in.
So the mail, or if you're bringing a receipts or if there's anything coming in from children or spouse, any kind of paperwork that people are bringing home, you want to have one place to collect it. As far as where this goes. I think it's important to put it where you're typically just dropping all of that stuff. If you're someone that drops it everywhere, you want to put it somewhere that's easily accessible so that you can train yourself to continue to put the new stuff in there. And for me, I use like a shallow basket, so that when it comes time to process things, I know when that basket's getting too full it's time to do it. If I haven't already, cause sometimes I'll deal with it right away. Sometimes I'll deal with it the next day. But there are times when things are busy and I don't time to process the mail.
if it starts to get too full that's when I know I need to get it done. Giving yourself, maybe a limit of the size or setting an appointment on your calendar to make sure that you go through this inbox is really important.
And as far as digital files go bringing stuff in. There's a couple of different ways you can approach it. You can use your download folder, but not everything goes into downloads. So you want to make sure that
if you're dropping a lot of things on your desktop, have some folders on there that you can put the new incoming stuff into. Now for me personally, I use this. you may have heard me talk about this before, but I have four categories for everything coming in. I do it for paper digital and email.
The first one I have is to do. The second one is to pay, even though bills are a to-do item. I like to keep my bills separate. The third thing is to read. And then the fourth is to file. I think you've heard me say this before. If you've been listening along that I don't love to file. So I have a to file folder for paper and I have one for digital. it just, I like to bulk file. So you can use that on your desktop.
If that works for you. or you could just simply have one folder that says, new stuff since what's today's January 10th. If you were starting today so that you can keep all the new incoming stuff separate. if you're looking for something that you've recently downloaded, it would be in there.
And then, When you get to the point at the very end, we're not thinking about systems yet. Then you can determine where those items are going to go. So it's really up to you how you want to structure that. but I really do find that a lot of people like the to-do to pay, to read, to file or some combination of that, whether it's just to do. To file to read, or just to do and to file, it really it's really up to you. If you have a business you may want to have two separate files.
Maybe you just have business new with today's date and personal new today's date and keep them separated like that. But just the important thing is just to know that all of the new stuff coming in is, recent and you don't need to work through the next steps on it just yet.
Now step four
this is where we start to declutter. Step four is narrow. I gave it the narrow word, just so that it would work with changes, but, it's usually what people want to get right to the meat of.
So you're going to work from your collect box if it's paper. Or you're going to just start doing some cleanup on your computer. So with your collect box you're gonna pull out items, maybe chip away, just work, work on it for 15 minutes. As you pull out an item, you're either going to keep it or you going to get rid of it. And getting rid of it either means recycling it or shredding it if it has a private information on it. And. At this stage, you want to be moving quickly. So if you. come across something that you're not sure of put it in the keep. So at this point, you're keeping, getting rid of keeping, getting rid of, so it, for me, I would have three bins.
I would have a keep pile. Keep in. Or pile. I would have a shred and then I would typically just put the recycling right into the recycling. We're keeping this high level and we're going quick because we want to reduce as much as we possibly can. And again, as you're going through, don't think about where things are going to go. Everything that's going to be in that to keep vial is what we're going to end up processing.
And when you're doing this with digital, this is really where people get tripped up because they're thinking about all of the different versions that they have of things and where they are. They may have one file on their, on their laptop. And then they may have another version or another duplicate of it on Google drive. And this is where I tell people it seems counterintuitive and it seems tedious but just pick from your inventory list one section. I'm going to work on my desktop today. And I'm not going to worry about where all those other versions are. I'm going to look at a file and I'm going to make that quick determination. It's either going to be, keep or get rid of. Now, at this point, you could move keep things into a keep, or you could just delete don't even, if you're going to keep it, leave it, move it to the side.
If you need a way to separate what you've processed through. and delete would just be delete. And again, if you're not sure, just keep it for right now. And then you would move on to the next thing. Okay. Now I'm going to go to my Google drive. When you get to your Google drive, you may say, oh, I saw that on my desktop.
Did I keep it or did I delete it? If you kept it, keep it. If you deleted it, delete it. The goal is to reduce your digital files as much as possible because we cannot organize clutter. Especially when we've got version control or duplicates and all of that. So I hope that makes sense. If you have any questions again, always look at the show notes as a way to contact me.
And I can't emphasize this enough. As you're going through, do not worry about where things are going to go. Cause that's going to slow you down. So then we move on to step five, which is to group. And now grouping isn't about creating systems. This is more about getting a high level sort. And this is where I talk about how I do my to-do to pay, to read, to file. So now you've decluttered as much as you possibly can.
When you get to the point where you want to group items, you're going to take your keep box. And you're going to start going through that again. Now at this time, you're going to be looking at things a little bit more closely. when you're going through it, when you come back across something that you're going to keep, think about what, what is going to happen with it?
Is it something that you need to do? Or is it something you need to pay? And again, that could be the same category for you. Is it something that you need to just read and it's not really that important, but you want to read it, you can put it there at, or is it something that you need to retain for records? I just put it into a to file folder. But the key is getting those things that have to be done out in those things that need to be filed, filed. And now when we're talking about digital files, you can use that same process. I like to keep things consistent across all my information, but if it helps you to, if you're looking at your screen and you're like, okay, all of these items on my desktop. What do I want to do with them?
Now, at this point you could net you hopefully have a lot less, you could, you could do those four categories or you could simply say, I'm going to put all the photos into one photo folder. I always recommend putting the date on it because then you know, that they've been processed. Putting those, all the photos into one, all the documents into one.
And then when you get to those ones that you're not sure about. Even creating a folder that says, look back, reevaluate, not sure whatever the words are that come to you. maybe or whatever that word is, putting that on there and having that separate. Again, It's just so that you know where you're at.
working with digital can be a little bit trickier. But really think about what you're doing. don't worry about creating a detailed, filing structure or for your files at this time. This is really about sorting things at a very high level.
And once you've gone through those first five steps. It's time now to evaluate, which is step six.
Some of the questions that you can ask yourself if this evaluate stage, think about what you've been holding on to had you been holding onto utility bills that you don't write off on your taxes and that, they're five years old and they just don't make any sense anymore. Were you holding on to too much information, essentially. so that'll help you make decisions in the future about what you're keeping. have you been making massive downloads of eBooks that you want to read someday and you never read, do you take screenshots of a lot of things because you're like, I want to remember that, but then the screenshots just get lost in the void. Maybe, maybe you have a system for assigning stuff coming in and it wasn't working for you and you can see that now clearly. But think about things that have been working for you. And what do you want to continue to bring in? And, are you hoarding information? There's so many different questions that you can think about. and they'll probably come up as you're going along, even though I didn't want you to think about them. It's natural for us. Sit with yourself and reflect. Because this is going to help you. When you go to determine what system. Which of course, as I said, systems is always last and this is step seven. And while I can't say to you. Do this. With your digital files, make sure you use a naming convention or with your digital files make sure that you have a very detailed, structured folder system. This is where your individual habits come into play.
I can tell you that some people are like folders, just they're just like, Nope, don't want to be doing folders. And then other people like myself, can't keep up with naming conventions and they just don't work for them. naming conventions will work, but being able to implement them, isn't always easy.
And I can tell you, I do not use naming conventions. It just. It's not how my brain works. I'm a person through and through.
Now that said, I do believe you need to have good names for your files. So if you take a screenshot, it's just going to say screenshot, blah, blah, blah, blah. You want to make sure you go in and rename that so that you understand what the screenshots of, so that if you're not a folder person and you're just going to dump everything into one folder and use the search function on say your computer. Then you want to make sure that it's searchable based on whatever name you, you give it. and usually when people. And naming things. I tell them, go with your gut. This is whether you're naming files in a filing system or naming files on a computer. What's the first thing you think of when you look at that, because that's probably going to be the first thing that you search.
I always use this example, when I used to keep all of, I don't keep much in paper anymore, but when I used to all my files were named differently.
So for example, My, my home internet was called verizon. But my cell phone was called cell phone. It's just the first thing that would come to my mind.
So I hope this was helpful to you.
I'm actually going to put the link to my free download that I have so that you have a reference point for these steps.
And, you know, I go into more detail with this in my Sensibly Organized program, which has this process built in amongst other things. and also the support and if you have questions, we do a monthly call. You can obviously ask questions right within the program.
I'll put that link in the show notes as well.
And beyond that, I also have a membership, a monthly membership that you can join. If you purchase Sensibly Organized right now, you can get the monthly membership for 50% off for as long as you're a member. And that includes co organizing sessions during the week. You can come to as many as you want, and basically you pop in and work on whatever step you're on or, or you could be working on home organization, email, whatever it is.
And I'm there to answer your questions if you get stuck along the way. Because a lot of times when we start doing things where we're like, I don't know what I want to do with this paper. Especially when you get to the grouping step, because that's where you're almost doing like a second purge and evaluation. if I can answer the question and
I can't tell you what you should be holding on to, but I can tell you how to determine that and who you need to talk to, whether it's your accountant, your lawyer, or your insurance company. But I can give you a general idea of what, you can let go of. And then you can confirm with your people. And in those sessions you can pop in and out.
You can, it's like an open house. So there are two hour session. And if, if you want to come in for the last hour, you can do that. You'll come in the first hour. You want to stay the whole time. You can do that. It's setting that appointment with yourself and also having me there, it's like setting an appointment with me virtually.
So I'd love for you to check that out.
And that's all I have for you today. I'm wishing you much progress, peace, purpose, and of course the permission to be messy. Thanks for listening.
