While I have still not resolved the scanner issue with my desperate friend, we are working on the "top layer". We are dividing papers into Active Projects, Some Day Soon Projects, mini-actions, Archive, Belongs to Other People, and read-at-leisure. A spin-off is the project wall...see below.
Active Projects/SDS --each gets a big post-it on the wall and a labeled folder : Only if we both agree we have to get to it as soon a.... we have a desk to work at! So I write a brief description a on a big post-it and stick it to the wall. We label a folder and put in it whatever needs to be used. We are using removable tape over the file tabs because our naming is pretty rough. If it is something only she can work on and will not involve another person in the foreseeable future, we stand it in front part of Active Project box (e.g., her professional work), if it needs to involve others (college planning with her kid), it goes in the middle, The Some Day Soon Projects are going in folders too and they get a post-it but it goes lower on the wall (below an imaginary line). The Some Day Soon folders are in the back (e.g. taxes 2010). I am loving the post-its on the wall. We can easily rearrange by name so we can locate if we have it or not, we can combine several if they are really one project. I am really digging this, it is so fast, easy and manipulable. This is brilliant for us at this time.
Archive: Since we cannot even get to the file cabinets and their existing folders without a half-day's work and a lot of thinking time, the Archive is at this point a big box that we will go through at some point in the future--maybe scan, maybe not. We both agreed it is better to isolate this stuff and have it ready to process rather than moving stuff around to get to all the file cabinets and having me hunt through a file system whose naming conventions are unknown to me.
Mini-actions:these are shoe boxes that equal contexts labeled at computer, call, write, receipts, bills to pay, at people, errands etc. The only thing we don't shoe box is entering a name in the Rolodex or a number in cell phone.
I think the rest explains itself. We do have a box for supplies, a box for coins and mysterious parts, and a box for things that go in another room.
We are feeling pretty psyched and grand at this moment.
Active Projects/SDS --each gets a big post-it on the wall and a labeled folder : Only if we both agree we have to get to it as soon a.... we have a desk to work at! So I write a brief description a on a big post-it and stick it to the wall. We label a folder and put in it whatever needs to be used. We are using removable tape over the file tabs because our naming is pretty rough. If it is something only she can work on and will not involve another person in the foreseeable future, we stand it in front part of Active Project box (e.g., her professional work), if it needs to involve others (college planning with her kid), it goes in the middle, The Some Day Soon Projects are going in folders too and they get a post-it but it goes lower on the wall (below an imaginary line). The Some Day Soon folders are in the back (e.g. taxes 2010). I am loving the post-its on the wall. We can easily rearrange by name so we can locate if we have it or not, we can combine several if they are really one project. I am really digging this, it is so fast, easy and manipulable. This is brilliant for us at this time.
Archive: Since we cannot even get to the file cabinets and their existing folders without a half-day's work and a lot of thinking time, the Archive is at this point a big box that we will go through at some point in the future--maybe scan, maybe not. We both agreed it is better to isolate this stuff and have it ready to process rather than moving stuff around to get to all the file cabinets and having me hunt through a file system whose naming conventions are unknown to me.
Mini-actions:these are shoe boxes that equal contexts labeled at computer, call, write, receipts, bills to pay, at people, errands etc. The only thing we don't shoe box is entering a name in the Rolodex or a number in cell phone.
I think the rest explains itself. We do have a box for supplies, a box for coins and mysterious parts, and a box for things that go in another room.
We are feeling pretty psyched and grand at this moment.