Yes indeed – let’s do it!
As well us putting documents into a filing cabinet in case you need them one day, probably in alphabetical order, there are TWO other types of filing which are worth knowing about, and these are filing things by due date, and by context.
FILING BY DUE DATE
The reason you would do this is that itâs quicker to have them ready for you in date order, and as things become urgent they come to the top so youâre not going to miss them. The snag is that if you want to find them and you donât know what date they are, it can mean some rummaging â but if you knowyou wonât need it until a certain date itâs a great way to file things. I use it for hotel bookings and conference agendas â I just put them in my file in date order, I take pages out and use them as they become current, so then when the date comes around for each job, it is at the front.
When I had an A4 paper desk diary I used to put all the future-based papers just loose in the diary, but it wasnât very portable and now that my diary is electronic this is no longer an option, so I have a separate file for just the time-related filing of bookings, agendas, extra notes for courses Iâm running, everything thatâs tied to a date.  I guess I could scan it all in and then attach it to events in my google calendar, but itâs quicker just to bung it all into my Date Order Folder, and if itâs quicker it saves me time, obviously, but also Iâm more likely to keep using the system.
So itâs a great system for events that have a specific date, but itâs also good for two other things. First is REPEATING items â suppose you want to remember to change the oil in your car every six months, or back up the files on your laptop every three months â you could put the documentation, maybe the phone number of the car mechanic and the agreed price, or the computer settings that you can never remember, youâd put them three or six months ahead into the rotating file so they come up when the date is due.
You could of course put a repeating item in your calendar, but if there is paperwork involved then where do you put that? Rather than have to dig it out of the filing cabinetevery time you might find it quicker to have it in date order so THERE it is when you need it.
The other time when a rotating file is useful is when you are delegating work and people have said theyâll do something for you, and you want to check itâs done. You get a date from them, but how to remember to follow up when that date comes around? Â
Again you could put a note in your diary, but if there is paperwork involved, you could simply put a date in the corner and put it in the right place in the file, so that when it comes to the top you are reminded to follow up that job. Then if they havenât done it, and you get a second date from them, you can just move the paper back a bit in the file. Theyâll never escape because the paper will keep coming to the top of the file when itâs due, and you can monitor lots and lots of these delegated tasks without any mental effort at all.
When I used to run a factory most of the tasks had a time horizon of less than a week, so I had a folder with dividers in it for Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday, and if someone promised me something for say Thursday I just put a note in the file in that section, so when Thursday came around I could see all the promises Iâd had from people for that day, and I could go and see all of them and find out if they had done what theyâd promised. It was the simplest and quickest way I could find for monitoring all those short term tasks. Longer term ones went into my desk diary as I mentioned earlier, and would nowadays be organised by my date order ring file, which I still use to this day.
So the physical place you put them could be one of two options â first is my A4 ring file where I put everything in in date order. I write the date in the top right corner, so that when I file a new item itâs easy to leaf through the pages and find the right place to put it in. So if for example I have a conference on 12th January I leaf through until I find something dated maybe 7th January and maybe something dated 24th January, and the new one goes inbetween them. Then at the start of each week I can see what Iâve got coming up for me that week, and there they all are, at the front of my folder.
The classic proper way to file things for future dates is to have a filing cabinet with dividers for each month, and in front of the âmonth filesâ you have files numbered one to 31 â these are for the current month, so if you want to file something for the 10thof this month you put it in the folder marked ten. If you want to file it for the tenth of NEXT month you just put it in the next month, in any position. Then, at the end of each month, you take all the papers out of the coming month and put them into the 1-31 section â and this gives you a useful planning preview of the coming month, how busy are you going to be? – and then the month folder goes to the back, so the 12 months rotate for ever.
Iâve seen this work really well for planned maintenance in a factory â if you need to get the motors checked once a year you put the page with the contractorâs details in the right month, a year from now, and you canât possibly forget it when that month rolls around.
Itâs quicker than putting it in your diary and then having to dig out the file â the file is already there. And your diary isnât clogged up by routine stuff. If something has to be checked every six weeks you have a sign-off sheet with dates on for every 6 weeks, and the sheet just gets put into the next monthâs folder once youâve done this monthâs check.
So thatâs time-based filing described in some detail. Thanks for sticking with me! Itâs great for events coming up, repeating tasks, and checking on things youâve delegated, and you can do it with a ring folder in date order, or with months and 1-31 days in your filing cabinet. The question Iâd like to ask is: how do you remember events and things youâve delegated at the moment, and how do you organise repeating tasks at the moment, and would a system like this be the least labour-intensive way to help you to remember everything?
FILING BY CONTEXT
Thereâs one other approach to filing that I think is really interesting, and thatâs filing by Context. Itâs been adapted to digital form by apps like Omnifocus, (and in a simpler way by my free app JobsToDo, where you can use colours for each context â check it out on the app store!) but you can also do it using paper if you prefer,
For example, if you have several offices or several sites in you company, you might want to file papers by location, so that when you go to your Miami office youâve got everything you need. Anything you need to check or follow up or discuss with the people there needs to be filed so that you just click Miami on your phone, or open the Miami part of your file, and there is everything. Within Miami it might be in date order, or just random, but the key thing is that when you are there you can just open that part of your system and be reminded of all the stuff you need to do while youâre there.
My two locations are âWhen Iâm at homeâ and âWhen Iâm travellingâ and this is my number one filing question â when I add a job-to-do to my list the first thing I think is âShall I do it while Iâm travelling, or do I have to be at home in order to do it?â Iâd rather get everything done while Iâm on the road, staying in hotels, but if it requires my wife or my home computer or my office at home then it has to go on the When Home list.
Thereâs a free app called Any.Do which isnât thrilling TBH but it does have the ability to set a reminder for any task, and within the Reminder you can select âLocation Reminderâ so that when you are in that area (it knows where you are via GPS) an alarm pops up â maybe you are visiting your parents, or passing the supermarket itâll pop up with a reminder to tell you to do something while youâre there â pretty cool I reckon.
Other contexts might be by person, or by customer, or by activity. So âby personâ would mean that when you meet with Dave you want to be able to access everything to do with him, and similarly if you have a small number of large customers you might want to be reminded of everything you need to discuss with that customer when you see them.
âBy Activityâ would mean that when youâre using PowerPoint youâd want to see all the jobs that need you to be in that mindset, or when youâre in your workshop what are the jobs. I have a list of things to glue when Iâve got the Araldite mixed, and I have a list of things like bonfires which I do when my wife isnât around â for some reason she doesnât approve of me setting fire to big piles of rubbish in our back garden, so thatâs one of the things I do when she is out for a while. And I have a list of jobs that require a fast wifi connection, so if I have a bit of time in a hotel and thereâs a good signal I check the wifi list and it reminds me to get those jobs done while I can.
Of course there is a need to remember to check these various lists, and if you have too many youâll forget some of them. So they should ideally all be in one place â one app with all your various jobs to do lists, or with the ability to select âAll tasksâ and see everything. So even if I forget to look at the âWhen I see Paul listâ, or I donât happen to see him for a while, Iâll still see that task, for example: âAsk Paul to look after the dog when Iâm on holidayâ when Iâm reviewing my list of everything I need to do. Imagine if it was only on my Paul list and so I forgot it!! Itâs important every now and then to take stock of everything, maybe once a week, just look through all your jobs and make sure nothing is getting too urgent.
So what would be your main Contexts â how does your work divide up â and do you think youâd gain from being able to look at just those jobs-to-do that are relevant to that particular context?
I hope you liked my filing tips!
Onwards and upwards
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