GTD block

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officelurker

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My current work flow looks like this: I am basically a multifunction administrator for a family business. I am responsible for a things but my main responsibility is the mail. I get all the mail for the business. It's quite a bit. The mail will contain, forms to be filled out, bills, reading material, and forwarding material.

I am lazy.

I currently have two huge piles of stacks of paper which were supposed to be filed away. Somewhere along the the line, I thought screw filling, I will just scan everything in and organize everything digitally into folders. Since I mentioned I was lazy, well, that hasn't gone well either. Some of the stuff is scanned and put in a stack labelled "to file: and now another stack is pilling up in a pile called "to scan".

There are two other people in my office who seem to have turned a blind eye (thank god) to this mess of mine.

We are in the property management business. We manage several properties. So I get mail for each of these properties. Last year I just took a whole years worth of stacks of paper that were to be filled and just stuffed them into a box and labelled it 2013.

Finding stuff is hard especially if it hasn't been scanned.

I also get invocies via email sometimes. I pay some of the utility bills directly online since I get those bills online.

I feel like I am in stuck in GTD in the equivalent of a writers block. I am in GTD block. I don't know what to do.

I have an iPhone. I love the reminders app and its simplicity. But this mess I am in is driving me crazy. I need a way to sort this out asap! HELP!
 
officelurker said:
We are in the property management business. We manage several properties. So I get mail for each of these properties. Last year I just took a whole years worth of stacks of paper that were to be filled and just stuffed them into a box and labelled it 2013.

Finding stuff is hard especially if it hasn't been scanned.
Click to expand...

Please don't be offended by my comment - it has much deeper meaning than it looks at the first sight:

Could you please provide the list of properties that your company manages? My friends and I will use this list to avoid problems when we will be choosing a property to rent or buy next time. Think about it.
 
Thank you for your reply TesTeq. I suggest you listen to a few Slice of Life videos on GTD. Almost everyone of them say they had a stack of papers unfilled until they came upon GTD and learned to utilize it properly. That is why we are all here. Unless you were born a supreme organizing GTD embedded super baby?

I will gladly provide a list of the companies our companies manage if you provide your full name to us so we can put a DO NOT RENT TO under your name.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
No need for either of you to get nasty. However TesTeq is at least partially right. If you job is handling the mail, and you are not doing it, and filing and missing things is an issue there is no way to know what critical and important information you so conveniently swept into a box and labeled without ever really handling it. In that case I too would not want to rent from you as what if the property has problems, or tax liens or other serious things that can cause hassles for renters either by having to deal with them or by being forced out if officials limit access for whatever reason.

So first off you have to get over thinking you are Lazy. You may be but saying it to yourself is a sure fired way to keep you in that loser mindset.

Now you have to deal with your mess. To start I'd sort through every single piece of paper in the stack and every single e-mail message in your e-mail accounts. You need to process it. When you pick up a piece of paper you need to really decide what to do with it. Given the volume and backlog it might take you half an hour to really decide what any single item is. This is where the 2 minute rule seems to catch people. If they can't decide whether the item is actionable within 2 minutes they just move on. In your case, with such a critical amount of stuff you need to really triage your piles but at the same time you tend to procrastinate so you need to just buckle down and do the work.

Items to read for information need to get immediately put in the inbox of the person who needs to read it. If that is you then get a box and put them in there.

Items you need to have available for tax or legal reasons need to get handled. Many will just need to be filed. If you decide to go digital fine if not fine but you need to just buckle down and actually do the work. That means that a pile of papers to scan or a pile of papers to file isn't an option. Scanning & filing the digital file and then shredding or disposing of the paper copy should take you less than 2 minutes. So when you get to a paper that has to be scanned and nothing else, then stop and do it right then.

This assumes you have decided on your file naming scheme and set up a suitable bucket for all scanned papers. Personally I would set up a folder for each property and one for the business as a whole. I'd scan the papers and make the filenames start with a date, --_ If you make them year, then month then day they sort properly on all computer systems. If you ever think you will be using a Linux system do not use any spaces in the filename. Instead us an underscore. The part should be something that will explain what is in the file easily. Then move the file into the folder for the property it relates to or file it in the business folder. I would expect to see things like 2014-11-15_Tax_Receipt_1234_Main_Street_Anytown.pdf and it would end up in the folder for the property at 1234 Main Street in Anytown.

Similarly if you decide to go with a paper filing system you shouldn;'t have to sspend any more than a minute filing a paper in the appropriate folder. Initially I'd make paper folders with each property and one for the business. Until the folder gets beyond about 2 inches thick don't bother trying to subdivide it. You need to get past the logjam first, then you can refine.

For any papers that have another action to do like pay a bill I'd put a note in my GTD system of what I need to do and file the paper in a folder labeled Action Support. Given the history I'd also make a note in my GTD system of the date that the item must be completed by if there is an official due date as in a bill.

For anything that can't be done now, but that you will need to decide on later, attendance at a meeting, a property inspection that will be done next month or something like that. I'd file the paper in a tickler file.

I'd set up my electronic filing system exactly the same way and handle all e-mail that way as well.

To get a handle on the stuff you may need to work extra hours, perhaps unpaid and even come in on the weekends but it is critical that you get everything handled properly ASAP.

Only once you have the decks cleared can you think about how to better handle the problem but you first have to get moving.

I knwo how paralyzing a huge pile of unhandled and unprocessed stuff can be. But it's not going to go away until you do it and GTD isn't some magic bullet that will fix it all, you still have to run the process.
 
Hey, Lurk,

I've got to give you kudos for hanging your laundry out there. We've all felt out of control at some point, and it takes some guts to get on a site filled with supremely organizing GTD embedded super babies and lay it all out there.

I've always found the idea of "lazy" - being unwilling to work - to be an interesting one. David Allen says repeatedly that he's the laziest guy in the world, but there is nothing about him that matches that definition... unless the word is re-defined as "unwilling to do more work than is necessary to get something done"... then, ok, I'll buy into lazy. Regardless of which definition you would characterize yourself, you've reached a point that is unacceptable to you.

Family business sounds like good job security to me. You've been there awhile and it seems like you haven't broken anything irreparable. What you've been doing - as unorthodox and unproductive as it is - has been working on some level. Yep, been there. But... now you need that to change.

Here's something to try: Today, process today's mail as you would imagine a supreme organizing GTD embedded super baby would... whatever that means to you. Ignore the stacks for today, just process today's mail. Then report back in here on how it went. That's it.

Dena
 
I really shouldn't have replied to TesTeq in the manner I did. S/he is kinda right. My desk is a mess. My remember the stuff I have on my desk is already processed. Like everyone, I might forget to process one or two things but mainly the mess is from already processed items.

Oogiem, thank you so much for your detailed reply. I guess it all boils down to two things: GTD isn't some magic bullet that will solve all *my* organizing problems and at the end of the day, I have to get down to it and start filing.
 
Is filling something that's supposed to done immediately after you are done with a piece of paper or a bill? Or can it be archived in a folder for a later project called "to be filed"?
 
Hey Officelurker,Kudos for you for reaching out to the community for help. That's what we should be here for.

To get to your issue, have you tried blocking out time for handling incoming mail on a daily basis? If this is your primary responsibility as you state in your post, it seems that you should give this task the priority it deserves. Additionally,within the time you block for it, I would try making myself a "Handle Mail" checklist that clearly breaks down my steps for handling the mail. It might sound elementary but it helps me with some of those more boring tasks within my role. Although I am a manager within my company, there are some tasks such as approving time cards, reviewing status reports, etc. that are very administrative in nature but can get away from me if I don't block time and break down the steps for myself. This isn't because I'm lazy but it's because they are so awfully boring! There is a free IOS app (maybe for Android too but not sure) called 30/30 that I keep my "Manager Admin Task List" in that allows you to put time blocks around specific tasks (example 15 minutes - approve time cards, 30 minutes - review status reports, etc).

If it were me, I might start tomorrow and handle that day's mail and then allot some separate time to work slowly on the backlog. You're going to need to "stop that bleeding" so if you can at least start with tomorrow's mail and feel you've gained some control over that, it might motivate you to start knocking out the backlog.

Hope this helps and best of luck! :-)

Vickie
 
officelurker said:
Is filling something that's supposed to done immediately after you are done with a piece of paper or a bill? Or can it be archived in a folder for a later project called "to be filed"?
Click to expand...

I would say it depends on what works for you but usually what I do is, if I have time, I just file it right then. If I don't, I keep it in my "to file" folder but I make sure "filing" is part of my weekly review.

Hope this helps!

Vickie
 
officelurker said:
Is filling something that's supposed to done immediately after you are done with a piece of paper or a bill? Or can it be archived in a folder for a later project called "to be filed"?
Click to expand...

I can tell you from experience that if I don't do it right then it never gets done. So I'd vote for file right away.

PS If you are resisting filing right away that is a clear sign you need to look at your filing system as it is the problem and not working for you.
 
TesTeq said:
Oh, I like these interviews so much - especially this audio interview: https://gettingthingsdone.com/conne...ess=dacmp3cOde&filename=TesTeq.mp3&type=audio ;-)

My comment was harsh, I agree. But the point is: what is the purpose of your work - support the company or bankrupt it. Both goals are achievable. ;-) Finding a convincing purpose allows us to fight laziness and procrastination.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting the link to that. Do you really still get up at 4.30/5.00 every morning? If that's true...wow.
 
TesTeq said:
Oh, I like these interviews so much - especially this audio interview: https://gettingthingsdone.com/conne...ess=dacmp3cOde&filename=TesTeq.mp3&type=audio ;-)

My comment was harsh, I agree. But the point is: what is the purpose of your work - support the company or bankrupt it. Both goals are achievable. ;-) Finding a convincing purpose allows us to fight laziness and procrastination.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that. Do you still wake up at 4:30/5:00 every morning (even weekends)? That alone is inspiration.
 
Personally I would set up a folder for each property and one for the business as a whole.
 
Personally I would set up a folder for each property and one for the business as a whole.
 
Update: I finally managed to do all my filing today! I don't celebrate Christmas (Merry Christmas to all who do!) so having the day off was great! Took me about 11 hours straight. I brought all my paper work from and got it done!
 
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