Strengthen Your Decision-Making

“You cannot make progress without making decisions.” -- Jim Rohn

This is the final article in a three-part series about managing information and reducing clutter in your office. The first installment detailed six essential tools to set yourself up for success. The second installment streamlined your options for processing information.

You already know from Barbara Hemphill, "Clutter is Postponed Decisions?." But making decisions can be hard. How can you feel more confident about the decisions you make?

 Enter The Art of Wastebasketry? - six questions to ask yourself as you go through your piles (or screens) of information to decide what to do with them.

 Before we get started, I need to reinforce that you should always follow established company document retention guidelines. Not all companies have these policies in place, but you should ask. You can often get retention guidelines from your CPA, and different industries often have their own specific retention rules.

 If you're going through personal documents, a great resource is Barbara Hemphill's book, Organizing Paper @ Home: What to Toss and How to Find the Rest.

 Are you ready? Let's jump into the six questions that make up The Art of Wastebasketry?. 

1. Does this item require action? - Is there a "to do" associated with it? Even if it needs to go to another person, the action is putting it in your outbox.
2. Can I identify a specific use for it? - Hint: "Just in case" is not specific enough!
3. Is it difficult to obtain again? - So many things are available online. While one extra paper copy may be perfectly reasonable in some situations, four or five extras are probably unnecessary.
4. Is it recent enough to be useful? - This question often ties back to question number 2. Is it up to date? Is it still relevant?
5. Are there legal or tax implications? - Nobody wants to invite trouble from their lawyer or the IRS! If you're in doubt - keep it. If you progress through the first five questions and still aren't sure, ask yourself question number 6.
6. What is the WORST thing that could happen without it? If the answer is you'll wind up in jail, don't throw it away. But, if you can live with your response to number six, you can safely discard it.

There you have it - The Art of Wastebasketry?. Use these questions to help you make decisions as you work through The File-Act-Toss System?.

You now know the right tools to have in place and how to make decisions about your information. If you're ready to make changes, let this three-article series start you on your path.

Would you like help setting up your information management system? Get started now by completing a Productive Environment Scorecard? at www.newpathpro.com/scorecard.

This article first appeared on the New Path Perspective blog by Kathy Muzik for New Path Productivity, LLC.

Clutter is Postponed Decisions?, The Art of Wastebasketry?, The File-Act-Toss System? and Productive Environment Scorecard? ?2005-2021 Productive Environment Institute | Used under license to Kathy Muzik