Is there a \u201cright\u201d way to organize something?\u00a0 If you\u2019ve been reading my blog for any time, you\u2019ll know that my answer to that is a passionate NO!\u00a0 The most important question is whether it actually works for you.\u00a0 If you and the people who need to use it are successful, that is all that matters.\u00a0 Often it is challenging to find the systems that will work for you.\u00a0 Goodness knows there are so many \u201csolutions\u201d offered \u2013 from books to the Internet, maybe even your mother!<\/p>\n
As people promote their solutions, it frequently falls into two categories: the direct outlining of a \u201cdo it this way\u201d approach or the more vague \u201cfigure out how to do it your way.\u201d\u00a0 Of the two, I\u2019m certainly more of a fan of the later, though this can leave the person searching for those solutions feeling no better off than when they started looking.<\/p>\n
Yet we can use those \u201cdo it this way\u201d approaches as a place to start.\u00a0 If there is one that draws you \u2013 for its simplicity or its logic, whatever it might be, begin thinking about how this would apply in your situation.\u00a0 Then alter it to fit you and your situation better.\u00a0 One of the keys to doing this is to keep it as simple as possible.\u00a0 The more complex we make things, the more likely they are to break down.<\/p>\n
I was working with a woman who had found a system for paperwork \u2013 break everything down into five categories.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit this was one system that I\u2019d never heard of and the categories suggested did not completely make sense to me. In my mind I saw a fair amount of possibility of overlap and hence potential trouble in retrieving papers.<\/p>\n
Yet the question is not whether this system made sense to me (never mind that I was unfamiliar with it!), it was about whether it worked for that individual.\u00a0 When I talked about setting up filing systems, I\u2019ve been a fan of having some broad categories.\u00a0 What those specific categories are can vary from person to person. If you liked four of those five broad categories, go with only those four.\u00a0 Or even change the fifth to something entirely different that applies to you.<\/p>\n