No matter how electronic (translated as “paperless”) we claim to be, I find that 95% of my clients and audiences are still struggling with stacks of papers. So many people still are not aware that there are ways around the traditional filing system, so I’m going to present my system of choice as a start for your research.
You have three types of files that you deal with every day:
- Daily Action: Things you still need to do
- Project Files: Active folders that are ongoing for a specific period of time
- Reference Files: Nothing more needs to be done on that item, but you want to keep it for possible future reference
The strength of the Paper Tiger software relates to the last type of file. Whether you are dealing with your own files within your office space or with a company-wide system that encompasses rooms of file cabinets, Paper Tiger can help. It provides you with the two required features of a strong filing system:
- You can find anything you need, whether it is six months from now or five years from now, and you can find it within seconds!
- You can quickly tell someone else how to find the required material.
Whenever I tell people that Paper Tiger is a software program, they immediately think of scanning. However the program itself simply catalogs your paper documents, and the computer then uses its vast search capabilities, with the Fast Find feature, pictured here, to pull up your keyword and point you to the correct folder.
With a program of this type, you eliminate many of the factors that make filing difficult:
- What do I name this so that I can remember how to find it? Call it multiple names, listing anything you might possibly think of when trying to locate the document again.
- I don’t have the right colored folder. We often use colored folders as one way to categorize our files in the hopes of narrowing down our search later. This is completely unnecessary with the software.
- I dont’t have time to create a tab for a file. Your file folders are numbered and can be made up in advance. Filing a new item simply becomes a matter of dropping it into the next open folder.
For more information on features of the Paper Tiger filing systems, please visit our website.
