You spend hours organizing your office, den, only to find a short time later you are back to the mess you started with. Sometimes this can’t be helped – the garage or basement or “that room” become the catchall when you are in a rush or you just got lazy. And for some reason basements seem intrinsically resistant to positive change. But many times, especially in the case of paperwork, it is because of a failure in the plan.

Organizing means to put in order, classify, arrange or sort out. But if you do that without a plan to systematize what comes in next, you will be quickly undone. You need a system – a plan of procedure, a body of methods, to keep what you have just organized from getting out of control once again.

For example, you have purged your files, made pretty folders with nice labels, no messy piles on your desk. Great, as long as nothing else shows up. You need to plan how will you deal with the next stack of papers that come your way. Try to identify your failure points.

• Do you have clear rules of what you can immediately toss?
  • If yes, do you have a convenient place to put it?  My main recycle bin for paper is downstairs so in order not to create another pile upstairs I have two small wastebaskets in my office – one for trash and one for paper.
• Do you have clear rules of what you will keep?
  • If so, does each type of document – bills, coupons, invitations etc. – have it’s own “home”? Keep a desktop file box as command central for those action items so you never have to guess where you put those tickets or that gift card. I like open top ones – lids tend to act as another place to grow piles. When there is no lid you are more likely to put things right into the proper folder.
• Do you have clear rules of what to do with the item after it is actioned?
  • Do you like to keep paid bills, or toss them right away? (whenever you toss it do shred!). If you like to keep the non tax related bills and receipts for a bit, set up a file system that is self purging . If you like to keep them for five or six months, set a folder for each month. When you have filled all six, toss the contents of the first and start over.

Even if you do everything electronically, you can apply the same concepts – a disorganized e-mail box is just slightly less annoying and cumbersome as disorganized paper.

So the next time you feel you are starting all over again, begin with the end in mind, as Steven Covey says. Have a plan, a system, that will provide an ongoing solution.