Under a Pile of Paper

Let me paint you a word picture. My husband takes handwritten notes frequently for his job. He takes those notes and puts them in a folder. He puts that folder in his work bag. He carries his work bag to and from work. Several weeks/months later (and after repeating this a bunch more times), he now has many handwritten notes. They all live in his folder. Which lives in his work bag. Which he schleps back and forth to and from work.

Eventually, he will take out a huge stack of these papers (plus any other additional papers that have landed in his bag), and do the arduous task of sorting through all of them. Most of the handwritten notes...end up recycled. He doesn't remember what he wrote down or what a certain phrase means, so the papers ends up getting tossed.

Imagine I'm throwing paper at you constantly. That would be hilarious. And annoying.

Why do we allow ourselves to repeat habits that are clearly inefficient? Well, first of all, it's hard to break a habit. You would have to make it automatic to NOT shove papers into your work bag. Or make it a habit NOT to take handwritten notes when you know they'll never be referred to again. It's almost entirely reliant on creating a system that works best for you.

Here's where the HuffPost comes in to save the day. Ask yourselves these three questions: What is it?

Why are you keeping it?

Where will it live?

The article goes into better depth on this and I'd highly recommend giving it a click!