Even more filing

Today we had an employee evaluation. i didn’t conduct the evaluation, but I did sit in. Overall, it was a positive event.

I got more little things taken care of such as the bank reconciliation. A friend stopped by with a delicious scone. Usually, I freeze these and eat them in halves or something. But today, I ate it.

We’ve been having our protein shake for breakfast, then having a larger lunch and a very light dinner. This has been great for Hun’s blood sugar, and I’ve been feeling pretty good too. We’ve not been having any sweets (we generally do not). But that scone just looked so delicious. And it was.

Oh my gosh, I had a really big pile today. Payroll records. This is the worst it has ever been. Truth be told, and to give myself some grace, it has been a challenging year for all sorts of reasons. That’s not an excuse, but I don’t want to be too hard on myself.

Tackling this pile did not take all day, but it did take all afternoon. Things got a whole lot messier before it was all said and done. I am pleased to say that everything got appropriately filed. Whew. Now I need to make sure that I do the filing as it comes or at least once a week. I really don’t want things to get behind more than once a week.

We are going to our new place this weekend. No cell service. No Internet. No television. So we are taking both trucks, loaded with stuff, the trailer will be loaded, and we will have some supplies to live with for the weekend. I don’t think we’ll do this every weekend, but once in a while. We are really looking forward to this.

When I got home this afternoon I did my cleaning task, and after dinner I started gathering some items to take including food, bedding, kitchen supplies, etc. We do have electricity (and heat), but we won’t be turning on the refrigerator as that will just be an electricity drain.

Of course we’ll have the Schnauzers.

More filing, cleaning and the birds

I got several things done at the office today including preparing for the next board meeting, paying some bills, clearing some paper work off the desk, and more filing.

Today I focused on making new folders for the last few accounts payable files. It took a good chunk of the afternoon even though I only had about a dozen to make.

About a year ago, I began switching over to Smead Viewables. After some organizing challenge workshops, I was impressed with how effective they appeared to work. So I set to re-organizing the files in my office. This didn’t include just files I had created by several decades worth of files. More about that some other time.

The process is somewhat time consuming, at least for me, and today I really began questioning if it was really a good plan. I mean, one could simply write on the manila folders, or use a template and print labels to the Inkjet printer and be done in a very short time.

First, you logon to Viewables.com and set your labels up. There are several options depending on the type of label you want to create. The most common ones that I use are the 3D labels and the top tab labels. Most of my files use both a hanging file folder and a manila folder. The hanging file folder remains in the filing cabinet from year to year. The manila folder is replaced at the beginning of each fiscal year. The 3D label is used for the hanging file folder while the top tab label is used for the manila folder.

Type the information you want to appear on your labels. When you are finished, print them. This generates a PDF document that you can download to your desktop. It’s better to do it this way than to print from the browser. Open the PDF and send to your color printer using the label paper supplied by Smead.

Peel the top tab labels away from the paper and place them on the appropriate manila folder.  Each label can be viewed from the front or back. It takes time to place the labels straight on the folder tab, without wrinkles.

For the 3D labels, peel the labels away from the paper and place them on the 3D tabs. This is an excellent video showing how to do this. This is quite time consuming for me. The labels can be removed and repositioned before being completely adhered to the tab. After putting the label on the tab, a clear plastic film is placed over the entire tab. This is another time consuming step, you have to take care to keep things lined up and wrinkle-free. However, the tabs do look pretty sharp.

After all this, the tabs are inserted into the hanging file folders at any position you choose.  I was really questioning my judgement in choosing this system by the time I got through all of this today. Until I got to the final step: actually filing the folders in the filing cabinet. Wow, I have to admit it is a thing of beauty.

When I got home this afternoon, Hun was loading more things into his rig in preparation for moving this weekend. So I took some time to do some cleaning. I swept the house and vacuumed the living room. I have been working through a daily cleaning schedule and I’m quite pleased with how much it has been helping me. More about that tomorrow.

Finally, the poor birds needed to be fed so I grabbed all the feeders and filled them up with black oil sunflower seeds. They really eat a lot of this stuff!

Filing, filing, filing

I have a lot of filing to do at the office.  Filing is not particularly fun. However, I do really enjoy having things organized.  I have gotten really behind. The best thing to do is to file things right away. However, that is not always practical. People are always needing something, or the phone is ringing, or someone is at the door. So I put things in a pile. Before I know it the pile is huge. Then I don’t even want to start. At least I put similar things in the same pile.

This particular pile is employee records, which should never get so behind. But they are the biggest pain, and the most difficult, so they take the longest. We got several new employees about the same time, so their files had to be created. Each record is maintained on a spreadsheet, so the spreadsheet has to be updated and printed. Holes have to be punched into every page. Each page has to be placed in the correct order (backwards chronological). And then it all has to be placed into the correct section of the folder. The folder is held in place with this rather interesting system.

I did get 100% caught up on this today! Tomorrow, I’ll begin tackling the payroll files.

One thing I have figured out that works for me is to focus on a single task. I have learned that multi-tasking really is not that effective or efficient.

Quite often I will also use the Pomodoro technique, work for 20 minutes and take a 5 minute break.

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