As we approach the end of the year regular work flow often slows down as colleagues take vacation for the holidays.  For me, I have found this to be an ideal time to tidy up by purging my paper files.

Filing is a beast that needs to be kept tame or it will slowly eat away at your productivity.  The surest way to let it run wild is to never purge old files, leaving your cabinets filled with stuff that is no longer needed.  Remember, if your file cabinets get over three quarters full the desire to file will diminish and piles will begin to appear all around you.

So make an appointment over the next few weeks to spend quality time with your files. You can even create space by digitizing files and then tossing the paper copy. I invite you to end your year by purging unneeded paper from your file cabinets and see how good it feels to have a clean start for 2017.