Message #36004

[andream]

and if bossie insists on handing you bits of things, then try this, ... give him some color coded folders, for instance nice red ones, ANYTHING he hands you has to go in one of these folders, period the end full stop.  A post it note all by itself with last week's golf scores on it.  Red folder and THEN into the in box. Two week old napkin with a contact's business number written on it, RED FOLDER and then into the in box.  Until you develop a system that works for you in keeping up with the filing, then at least, when bossie insists he gave it to you, you'll be able to go to the pile, find the red folders and go thru them.  Further that growing pile with the red folders sticking out of it will be a constant reminder and will cause you to think about how to solve your issues, you can also take the color coding to the next level, if bossie is well trained and responds well to new ideas,

Try,,, this.  If it's urgent filing stuff, as in  "if you lose this you are going to be SO busy looking for your replacement" it goes into Red, if it's got to do with bills meaning recv;ables or payables, payroll,  or money in whatever fashion it goes into green, if it's got to do with clients it goes into blue.... if it's too weird to be properly categorized zap it into a yellow folder, keep a supply handy near your in tray, upright in one of those stepped up file thingiies whose name I knew just a few minutes ago but which now suddenly eludes me, anyway keep them upright, empty and well supplied so that bossie can chuck his stuff in them easily.  As your rainbow of a file tray begins to grow at LEAST you can say, hmmmm Let me do just the urgent don't lose this under pain of death filing today and pull the red folders from the pile, then later, you can pull the green ones, rather than having to take the entire pile and figure out what everything is first and then worry about where to file it.  it seems a roundabout way of doing things, but it will help you to prioritize the paperwork a little, will let bossie know you are trying to be proactive, encourage you to develop a system.  We can all tell you wonderful things about how we created our own systems but in the end you need to find one that works for you, and in the meantime you need to be able to find things that have been handed to you.

Positioning this thing with bossie is easy too.  Take responsibility for not having the filing done as often as you'd both like, then explain your system which is meant to be a temporary stop gap and ask,, repeat ASK for his help until you get a better system in place.  He'll do it.  He's a nice guy., besides he's going to be in awe of you for attempting to do something about the issue in the short term which enables him to have what he needs and an offshoot will be that when he is looking for something and you're not sitting there, even HE will know it's in a Red file,,, or a green,,, or ... well you get the idea.

And don't everyone write me about how she needs to do the filing! this is only meant to be a temporary measure to help sort out the problems that arise when akara has to pull forth a big pile of unsorted papers and try to find something while bossie stands and taps his foot, saying things like... I gave it too you last week.

My own files tend to be like an archeological dig,,, when Im looking for something, I think,.,, hmm well that's the presentation for xyz company in there, so that was before the insert name of document was created which means it MUST be further up the pile,,,,,,

Andrea
No file folders were harmed in the making of this post....