You know. Those 18,000 pieces of paper stuffed in that file cabinet in your office. Yup, that’s how many are in there. And it’s growing. The ‘paperless society’ has been discussed since the early 1970’s yet we now produce more paper today than ever before in the history of mankind.

Here are your productivity tips for this month:

1.      7 broad categories. Category names like Financials, HR, Clients, Suppliers, etc. No more than 7. You can have as many sub-categories as you want, but the original decision should be based on no more than 7 categories.

2.      Is it Financial or legal? If so, it lives under a different set of rules. Check with your CPA, attorney or insurance professional to learn more about retention schedules and before throwing anything out.

3.      Learn to let go. If the file does not have financial or legal ramifications or it doesn’t bring value, let it go. Throw it out. Shred it. Then save a tree by not printing everything you read on the internet. Less is more!