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7 Tips for Decluttering Your Desk

Ian's Messy Desk

If your desk harbours mounds of papers, books, files and personal accessories, you may be adding unnecessary stress to your day. Set up a good filing system. Colour–coded files are especially helpful — they show you at a glance where something should go. Put items that must be looked at in a special folder or file.

Filing 100
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Manage Your Paper With a RAFT

Ian's Messy Desk

Files can be kept in open piles on a desk or in folders, according to your style. Use the RAFT template: refer it, act on it, file it or toss it. File it, if necessary. Eighty percent of filed papers are never looked at again. If the amount is small, three times a week may do. Act on it immediately.

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How to exorcise your demons of disorganization

Ian's Messy Desk

Manage paper effectively – Barbara Hemphill, author of The Paper Tiger, offers the FAT principle for paper burden: file it, act on it, or toss it. Reference Files: store in a convenient location close to your desk. Archive Files: store in a filing cabinet or an off-site location.

Filing 100
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8 Tips to Help You Clean Off Your Desk

Ian's Messy Desk

Sort – everything into boxes/containers according to what needs to be done: file , shred, recycle , refer, toss, etc. Process the paper – take the items you sorted into boxes and put them where they belong: filing, your tickler or reading folder or delegate/refer to a more appropriate person, etc.

Calendars 100
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5 Ways to Free Up Room on Your Brain's Hard Drive

Ian's Messy Desk

Delete unnecessary files: With a computer, you can free up space by sending unnecessary files to the trash. How about all those “junk files” on your mental hard drive? Download: Many “must keep” files that don’t need to reside on your hard drive can be downloaded onto a disk. Do yourself a favour – delete them.

UPS 100
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Anyone can be an Administrative Assistant, right?

Laughing all the Way to Work

© Copyright Patricia Robb 2010 17 December, 2008 Anyone can be an Administrative Assistant, right? Try to anticipate the need so you can have the file or the answer your boss needs, before he or she even knows they need it. I finally had a chance to sit down and read your book over the holiday. Lets enjoy our day together.©

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Oh where or where is my password?

Laughing all the Way to Work

© Copyright Patricia Robb 2010 1 August, 2010 Oh where or where is my password? I keep mine in an encrypted Word file on my computer. I also have an encrypted file with various other important numbers like my and my husbands social security numbers and the like. However, you probably want to password protect file.