•Paper-holding trays (at least three)
•A stack of plain letter-size paper
•A pen/pencil
•Post-its (3X3s)
•Paper clips
•Binder clips
•A stapler and staples
•Scotch tape
•Rubber bands
•An automatic labeler
•File folders
•A calendar
•Wastebasket/recycling bins
Happy to say that I think I have about 80% of this at my office cubicle. However, Allen pointed out that this should also be present at your home office. I went and checked on that, and I think the only thing I have are pencils and paper. Fail! I really like the system he set up, however as an avid Google Calendar and Any-do (a to-do application on my phone) I am definitely interested to see how his techniques could translate into my more technology based organization system.
In Chapter 5 I enjoyed his approach to incomplete tasks, and I laughed when he mentioned the Purge-and-Organize bug. I do this SO many times, where I will be looking for something in my file cabinets, and then caught up with how messy it is and end up spending a good hour or two cleaning and reorganizing the entire cabinet. When I come to realize that it looks exactly as it did before, I look at the time and realize I didn't get done what I had originally gone to the cabinet to do in the first place. I am interested in his philosophy of the "in" box, and also to go for quantity.
To quote directly from the book, I thoroughly enjoyed what the "in" box is capable of achieving,
"When you've finished processing "in," you will have
- 1 | trashed what you don't need;
- 2 | completed any less-than-two-minute actions;
- 3 | handed off to others anything that can be delegated;
- 4 | sorted into your own organizing system reminders of
- actions that require more than two minutes; and
- 5 | identified any larger commitments (projects) you now have,
- based on the input. "
I am convinced to try out this method in the coming weeks and seeing how it will affect my quality of life. Cheers!
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