When you think about filing, keep it simple. Clear your computer desk, office desk and anywhere else of papers. Putting files in numerical order might not cut it and the place you come up with for filing old newspaper cuttings one day, might not seem spring to mind later, when you need to retrieve them.

Be totally practical and efficient and don’t complicate it.

At the initial stages organise your paperwork on your office desk like this:

•    Read all
•    Take Immediate Action
•    Keep for one month
•    File
•    Throw in the bin

If you adopt this method at the outset, even the most daunting of filing jobs can become structured and you can start making sense of the mayhem. Even better you can see the colour of your office desk again. It also clears your mind so you can function more efficiently when dealing with that day’s tasks.

When you do throw paperwork away, remember how important it is to recycle.

When you start to think about a long term filing system, make it straightforward and keep it in a basic ABC format, so even if you are not there and you need to ring and have someone find a certain piece of paperwork, anyone can understand your system.