How to use an assistant to help process the backlog?

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Anonymous

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I have many, many older boxes of stuff, some filed, some in a mishmash. What do I need to do before, mentally or physically, I get someone to help me with this? What should I ask a helper to do? These contain a misture of unndeeded and needed documents, unpublished ans irreplacable materials for my work, recepts, addressses and trash. The first pst of the prject is going great--I am processing massive amounts of current and old papers. I am reducing the volume and capturing what I need to on lists. WOW!
 
Jamie,

maybe your helper should create an inventory of your stuff to make processing easier for you.

In addition you could set up a list of categories for your stuff and provide your helper with a set of criterias to decide which stuff goes into which bucket. And you should have a supply of files and boxes at hand.

Rainer
 
ways assistant might help with the backlog

Thank you Reiner, but I haven't figured the criteria yet. The only thing I can think of at this point is 1)separate office supplies and place in designated container 2) put any magazine or catalogue type of thing in a recycling box. It hardly seems worth it to pay someone and supervise them to do this.So, I need to think more on this or maybe as I process the old stuff it will be more apparent. By the way, in processing the current stuff, which is still not finsihed, I have reduced the amount I am keeping by more than half and as I get to older items, more are going to trash.
 
Help from an assistant

I actually just processed two boxes of old material this way. I hired a college graduate student, put them in one room with the box and a long table and told her to sort the best she could. I was working in the other room on additional filing, and simply checked in about every 30 minutes. I was able to adjust the sorting during those check in times, and it took less time as she continued to work. We ended up with 90% either shredded, thrown away, or in a labeled file folder. The other 10% I had to go through personally.
 
Asst to sort

Hello "Guest"--I think you have hit upon something "sort as best you can" and then for me to look at the emerged categories. There is a method in social science research that is similiar where in the early stages you have people (can be experts or not) create categories for organizing or classifying words, phrases or something else.
 
You might want to check out the book, "Taming the Paper Tiger at Work" by Barbara Hemphill. An excellent resouce. She does for paper management what DA does for time/productivity management.

Craig
 
Re: Asst to sort

Jamie Elis said:
Hello "Guest"--I think you have hit upon something "sort as best you can" and then for me to look at the emerged categories. There is a method in social science research that is similiar where in the early stages you have people (can be experts or not) create categories for organizing or classifying words, phrases or something else.
Click to expand...

Glad to be of some help! It certainly worked for me, and I hadn't thought about the link to research (funny, since I'm a college professor and my dissertation focused on emerging themes!).
 
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