Tackling All That Paper

From a Yahoo! group I subscribe to, Bernadette shares her secrets to success. I think it's so powerful to hear this in her own voice. (Published with permission.) Note: Bernadette is using the Getting Things Done methodology, where collecting the paperwork is the first step.

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And, I thought about why I'm doing this now, and couldn't get through it before. Here's what I've learned:

. I had to make it fun. Who wants to do things which are a chore or a bore? So, I turned on the radio to a classic oldies station (I am a classic oldie myself) and just said I'm going to collect until I'm tired. Then, I'll stop . . . see where I am and decide if I want to collect again.

. I finally bought everything I needed. I bought file folders, label maker, etc. It certainly is more fun to do this when I have the right tools at hand.

. Finally, I stopped thinking about the past and stopped thinking about the future. Yes, I should have done this years ago (why do I have work papers going back to 1997 for clients who have been acquired?), but backwards thinking is just a monumental waste of time. As a corollary, I could be thinking about the next step . . . but that, too, is just diverting my energies from what I want to do now.

I have thus far pitched 6 recyclable bags of old paperwork!