Hi everyone.
I’m Alejandra from Alejandra.tv and in this video I’m going to share with you how to
organize important papers that require you to take some kind of action, so you can stay
on top of things and avoid any kind of negative consequences.
But first, if this is your first time watching any of my videos and you are just getting
started with organizing, you can check out my free video series on three things to do
tonight to feel more organized tomorrow when you wake up.
There’s a link below.
All right.
So in the first video, if you missed it, there’s a link below.
But the first video we talked about how to sort paperwork.
We grabbed a stack of papers and we sorted everything and we created one pile for everything
that requires you to take action.
There’s a link below in case you missed the video.
But now, in this video, I’m going to share with you a system, an easy-to-set-up system
for organizing all of the things that require you to take action.
So it’s like bills to pay, people to call, things to cancel, things to apply for, things
to submit, things to follow up on and stuff like that.
All right.
So I have the pile here and let me grab the system and show you exactly what I did.
All right.
So right here, I have a wall-mounted magazine holder and just because this is a magazine
holder does not mean that you need to only use this organizing product for organizing
magazines.
If you just think outside the box, you can organize anything that can stay nicely in
a vertical slot just like this.
So I put papers in here.
You can do file folders.
You can do coloring books.
You could do scrapbook paper, anything that will stay nicely here.
OK.
So what I did here was I took all the papers, the required action that we sorted out.
This is more papers than from the previous video but everything here requires you to
take action.
I put it one piece of paper – like one project in each slot here to make it really visible
on what requires you to take action.
So if you’re a visual person and you have things to do, you need to visually see what
you need to do in order to remember what needs to be done because it’s like out of sight,
out of mind.
If these papers that require you to take action were inside of a closed drawer or underneath
the stack, you would easily forget what needs to get done.
So by keeping them visual just like this, you’re constantly reminding yourself what
needs to get done.
All right.
So everything here requires you to take action.
Something else I did here was I took a Post-it note and I wrote down what the action is for
each piece of paper or each document.
So for example, this one right here says, “Confirm status next month.
Make sure that your rate went down from $89 to $77.”
So when you process a sheet of paper or you process a statement inside your office, you
had the information that’s like top of mind.
So it’s easy to remember.
But if you need to follow up on something next month or in six weeks from now, when
you come back to this document, your mind is not fresh on all the information.
So if you just take a sticky note and you write yourself like a dummy note on what you’re
supposed to remember, it’s going to help you be able to process this document a lot
faster than if you didn’t write yourself a note.
So this says, “Make sure your new rate is $77 as opposed to $89.”
So it’s just like checking your statements to make sure it’s correct.
So everything has a dummy note here with some kind of critical information.
Like this is due on 3/31.
This needs to be submitted by 3/15, stuff like that.
So I just took sticky notes in any color.
There are multiple colors here.
I just grabbed whatever sticky note I could find.
Nothing is color-coded.
You can also write it on the actual piece of paper if you don’t want to use a sticky
note.
But the point is make it as easy as possible so when you come back a month from now to
process these documents, you know exactly what to do.
It’s easy.
There’s no frustration and you can just handle everything with ease.
Then the last tip here is to – once you process a paper or document, so let’s say
you paid – let’s say you submitted this because this says, “Submit to IQB.”
So let’s say you submitted this.
What do you do with this now?
Do you put it back in here or do you get rid of it?
So what to do with this paper depends on if you need it or not.
It’s hard to say what papers you need.
But if you don’t need it, if you don’t need the paper, then your options are to shred
it if it has sensitive information or to recycle it if it doesn’t have sensitive information
and it can just be recycled.
If you need to keep the piece of paper or keep the document for your record, then you
can either put it in a file box.
So let me grab my file box.
You can put it in a box just like this of stuff to file.
So I prefer to batch file all my documents.
So in my office, my office isn’t set up right now because we just moved.
But in my office, when it’s normally set up, I have a box or a drawer that has file
on it and I will just put anything that needs to be filed inside the box and then at the
end of the month or the end of the week, depending upon the volume of papers inside the box,
I will sit down in front of my filing cabinet and I will just file all the papers right
there nice and easy as opposed to filing one paper at a time as it needs to be filed.
So it’s like batch processing.
Now, if you don’t want to file the paper and you’re a digital person, you can start
a box for scanning and then once your box gets filled, you scan your papers, so you’re
not keeping the physical piece of paper.
If you do this, filling a box thing, you just have to make sure you actually file or scan
as opposed to letting this box fill up and then grabbing another box and starting another
file pile.
That’s when piles accumulate.
That’s when we get behind on things and what’s when we get a little bit disorganized.
So just stay on top of your piles.
I hope you found this video helpful.
Again, if you missed the first part of how to sort papers, there’s a link below.
If you want more videos on getting organized, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel or
check out my website Alejandra.tv for more tools and training on living a more organized
and productive life.
Thanks for watching and I will see you soon.
Bye!