"File, Don't Pile." It's something Professional Organizers have been saying for years. And for years I've been saying, "Pile if you want to! It can work!" If you're a piler (like I am) I have good news for you. Pile away, grasshopper! The secret to making piles work is HOW you do it...
We naturally pile by stacking things as tall as we feel comfortable without the stack falling over, then starting a new stack. That's the INeffective method. It doesn't work because it's a RANDOM pile, which makes it tough to locate anything once it gets buried in the stack. There are no indicators for topic, next action, or chronology (other than the fact that you can assume the newest information is on the top).
In my business, it's my job to come up with organizing and productivity solutions that fit my client's lifestyle and work style. And for years, I've said as long as each pile has a purpose or a name, piling is a perfectly acceptable way of organizing information -- to a point. Each "pile" -- whether it's in a basket, clipped to a clipboard, in a stacking desk tray, or is simply stack of papers -- MUST have a label and a boundary.
The label tells you what it is, the boundary tells you when it's time to take action.
The label might be a noun, describing WHAT KIND of information is in that pile (Invoices, New Prospect Sheets, Magazines, Letterhead, ABC Project).
It might be a verb, describing some PENDING ACTION (File This, Shred This, Mail This, Research This, Follow-Up).
The label for the pile might also describe WHO or WHERE this information is going next (Accounting Dept, Sales Manager, Bob's Desk).
The "Relevant Pile" method has always been one of the ways I recommend taking control of paper and projects in the workplace because a) it's simple and b) human nature is to pile, so I try to work with that tendency rather than against it.
Pendaflex must have been sneaking around inside my head, because they've come out with a product called PileSmart® which does exactly what I just described. It offers you an option for creating physical structure around your RELEVANT PILES.
PileSmart® is ridiculously simple. It consists of a clear acrylic desk tray and six flexible plastic sleeves to store papers in. Each plastic sleeve is a different color and has TWO erasable tabs on it -- one tab on the short side and the other on the long side. Each sleeve's tabs are at a different location, so they don't overlap when the sleeves are stacked in the acrylic desk tray. You just label each sleeve and move your relevant piles into the appropriate one, where they live in a nice neat STACK on your desk! Yep. A stack. Go figure. :o)
Accompanying the PileSmart® system are the PileSmart® Binder Label Clips. These are my favorite office supplies with a large labeling area added. They're also erasable so you can change them out whenever you need to. These clips keep related papers together so they move as one unit, which is great for those on the go.
So if you're a committed piler, the new Pendaflex PileSmart® system might be just the thing you need.
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