Are you a paper pecker?

Piles of paper on a counter, desk, chair, floor, and most other horizontal surfaces? Feeling guilty because the piles tend to increase rather than decrease? Spent 30-60 minutes working on the piles without any noticeable difference? You may be a paper-pecker! Here's how you'll know:

• You simply move papers from one pile to another
• You work on one pile of paper and it becomes multiple piles
• You deal with one or two pieces of paper from each pile which doesn't create any discernable difference
• When mail arrives, you only open the "easy" or "fun" pieces

In effect, you take a quick peck at a piece of paper without really processing it. As you've discovered, this "method" of processing papers leads to paper-overwhelm. Let's see what we can do to stop the paper pecking practice.

First, differentiate between the three types of papers or ARM yourself. Archive papers are those that you rarely need but keep for legal purposes. These can be housed in a less-accessible locations. You will not have too many papers that truly fit this category! Reference papers are those you refer to on a fairly regular basis. Depending on the type of document, it might be daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. These can be filed in drawers, file boxes, binders, etc. As long as you have a system, you will be able to access these papers when you need them. Motion papers are those that require action. There are many types of actions: pay, file, read, do, delegate, call, attend, buy, write, discuss, etc. Of course, don't forget shred, recycle, or toss. These are papers that need to be "top of mind" which means they need to be visible or the corresponding action needs to be noted in an appropriate place.

Now that you can distinguish between the three types of papers, you have to create ways to process each type. Archive and Reference papers are usually filed in some way. Motion papers are more complex. For instance, if it is an event you plan to attend, it needs to be entered in your calendar or planner. If it is a phone call, you may add it to a task list or schedule a time in your calendar. If it is a magazine to be read, it needs to go somewhere so that it will be read. There are many ways to process Motion papers and the most important component is to have a system that works for you!

If just reading this is causing you stress, start with this one empowering question: What needs to happen next? Ask this question for each piece of paper, answer the question, then act! The only escape from your paper pecking ways is to start doing something...anything. What will you do today to positively impact your paper-overwhelm?