Managing paper saves time and money and reduces stress!
Twice a year, I conduct small group workshops who wanted to do their own organizing at home. I give guidance, support and advice in a very affordable month long Clutter Management Program. Each person chooses his/her own project.
Over half of the participants will need to organize their home offices and specifically the paper!
The advent of the information age has multiplied the amount of paper we generate. We get more mail than ever – an average of 40,060 pieces in our lifetime, 1/3 of which is junk. Add bills, magazines and newspapers to the mix and you can see why we are buried under paper piles.
Are you struggling too?
Do the piles of paper on your desk, dining room table, or kitchen counter make you feel overwhelmed and anxious?
Have you agonized over, “What should I be working on now?” because there are too many unfinished projects scattered on every available surface?
Are you unable to focus due to the physical and mental clutter from all that paper?
Do you find yourself performing your least importance tasks just because they caught your eye first?
Have you paid late charges during the past year because the bills were lost in the black hole of your desk?
Are you consistently late for appointments or forget important dates that never make it into your calendar?
Does your TO DO list consist of scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes and lunch napkins?
7 Must-Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever
enables you to finally clear those surfaces in your home or office you haven’t seen for months!
Following a simple step-by-step plan you will:
- Get a lightening quick start to an organized work space with speed sorting.
- Know how to manage your inbox to keep it from overflowing.
- Radically simplify your paper flow with the F.A.S.T.™ method.
- Revolutionize your follow-up using a Tickler File.
- Find out how batching saves you tons of time.
- Become a pro at delegating so other guy can’t drop the ball.
- Keep a “ready reference” file to become super productive every day.
- Be empowered to minimize distractions.
- Keep your desk cleared for action.
- Save an hour a day and quit on time.
As a bonus, you receive an Interactive Retention Guideline: Use this MS Excel list again and again, whenever you are ready to shed those outdated files. When you enter today’s date each retention category is automatically updated with the appropriate cut off date. Any paperwork in that category dated prior to the cut off can be safely shredded.
I want to help more people than I can in those two workshops.
That is why I want to get this DIY eBook into your hands.
“7 Must-Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever!”
is instantly available to you for only $29!
That is my reward for your commitment to get started cleaning up your paper piling act!
Yes, Martha, I want to get started now!
Some startling facts about paper that should not even surprise us anymore:
- The world consumes five times more paper now than in 1950.1
- Each person in the United States uses approximately 750 pounds of paper each year. This equals approximately 187 billion pounds per year.2
- The average American receives 49,060 pieces of mail in their lifetime; 1/3 of it is junk mail.3
- The United States annually consumes 4 million tons of copy paper, 2 billion books, 350 million magazines and 25 billion newspapers.4
What does this rise in paper generation mean on a day-to-day basis?
The average desk worker has 36 hours of work on his or her desk and spends 3 hours per week sorting piles trying to find the project to work on next. (Richard Swanson, The Overload Syndrome)
The paper piling problem is not limited to the average Joe or Jill.
Studies have shown that executives will pick up a single piece of paper from their desk thirty or forty times before acting on it. “Don’t use your desk as a storage place for items awaiting action. If you can’t dispense with it immediately, at least keep a follow-up pile.” (Michael Woolery, Seize the Day)
Without a plan, paper will win. We can be overwhelmed, finding ourselves debating which information to act on first, crippled by visual and mental clutter. The best defense is a good offense.
That is what the eBook 7 Must-Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever! will give you. You will have designated homes for the information that enters your life via paper, so you will always know where to look to access that info. Piles will no longer hide the important under the insignificant.
Read what one listener accomplished when he heard about speed sorting.
Kelly Galea, The Design Biz Coach, asked me to be a guest host on a teleclass for her Design Biz clients. I spoke on the topic “How to Conquer Paper Piles” a shortened version and introduction to my eBook 7 Must-Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever. Raymond Funk was listening that day and sent this thank you to Kelly.
Kelly:
I wanted to send you a quick note to share the immediate success I had after listening to the conference call on “paper management.”
I, like so many other people, had a desk piled high with papers. I was, what I would call, a professional paper shuffler…I’d move papers from my in-box to a pile, from the pile back to the in-box…maybe go through them once in a while (usually only when I had to find something), all with the intention of “one day” going through the mass of paperwork to clear off my desk and REALLY get organized.
Well, that day came and went so often that I convinced myself that my messy desk was the sign of a very busy person…the truth is, that it made me less productive and less motivated because the messy desk was a constant reminder of an uncompleted task…
Then, on what I would consider a fateful day, I received the e-mail about your upcoming Organized For Life conference call with Martha Clouse…(coincidentally, my home office is shared with someone else who subscribes to Design Bites who “not so subtly” forwarded me the info on the call). So, I registered for the call and when the day arrived I dialed in while I was driving to a meeting.
Now, admittedly, I did not expect to get much out of the call because, after all, “how difficult is it to organize papers?” “All I needed was a good day or two to sit down and go through all of my papers, files, etc. so I could clean up everything and get it all together” or so I thought…much to my surprise, I learned quite a bit…
Martha had presented her steps to personal paper organization in such a simple, yet logical way that the dreaded, and much ignored, task seemed not only easily doable in far less time than I thought, but inspired me to immediately do something about my “mess of a desk.” As a result, the first thing I did after returning home from my meeting was sit down at my desk, stare the piles of paper square in the face and thought “I’m not getting up until you are gone.”
Well, I am happy to report that not only is my desk clear and my files are organized in a simple effective way so that I know exactly where to go when I need something, but I feel much better sitting down and not looking at all of the clutter. To top it all off, what I thought would take an entire day or two only took me a few hours due to the thoughtful, easy flow process for handling the papers.
I can’t tell you how much this simple call has improved my work space, my productivity, and my attitude about sitting down at my desk.
Thanks…keep the great ideas coming.
Raymond Funk
F&F Design Center
407-404-3123
In my first Clutter Management Program, everyone wanted to solve a paper piling problem! We were able to focus on these same 7 Must-Have Tools.
Each of the ladies made excellent progress in clearing piles and getting her papers under control.
Using the crate for speed sorting [was most helpful]. I am much further ahead in my organization than I would be without this class.
Lisa G.
I feel very motivated – loved the book and materials. [What was most helpful to me was] seeing that I was not alone and that it didn’t have to be finished all at once.
Jackie B.
You can have the same results – motivation and quick progress – by following the step-by-step instructions in the eBook “7 Must-Have Tools to Conquer Paper Piles Forever!” Order now!
When you purchase, you will get immediate delivery of the eBook in PDF form.
PLUS, to guide you in which papers to keep and which can be shredded, you will receive the Interactive Retention Guideline. Reducing the volume of your reference files will streamline your office and make room for incoming files.
I guarantee that by following the step-by-step instructions in 7 Must Have Tools you will be empowered to make decisions and act quickly on the paper that hits your desk.
With you in keeping it simple!
Martha Clouse
Professional Organizer
Organized For Life, LLC
- Paul Hawken, Hunter Lovins and Amory Lovins: Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Little, Brown and Company 1999) Synopsis by Stephen Marx. [↩]
- Rainforest Maker: paper facts. [↩]
- National Association of Professional Organizers’ organizing statistics (PDF). [↩]
- Rainforest Maker: paper consumption. [↩]