How to organise your paperwork

Are you struggling to manage the paper in your work day? Learn a super fast way to sort and organise your paperwork with the four Fs – finish it, forward it, file it or flick it.

Winning the war on paper is all about having a great sorting system to organise your paperwork. This involves making one of four decisions about each piece of paper that’s piling up around you: finish it, forward it, file it or flick it.

1. Finish it

This category is for any work in progress. It includes current things in three main categories: finance, projects and correspondence.

Finance covers bills to pay, health insurance claims, unchecked lottery tickets, a tax return in progress and receipts for items to be returned. Projects might be any work to do or creative projects on the go, education or professional development assignments, personal projects and upcoming events. Correspondence will be any forms to fill out, drafts of letters or unwritten birthday cards.

2. Forward it

This is for the paperwork that needs to leave your space. It’s paper that doesn’t belong with you any longer. Examples include forms you’ve filled in that need to be sent elsewhere or something you’ve borrowed that needs returning. Anything that is no longer useful to you but that you know requires action or is of value to someone else falls into this category.

3. File it

Likely to be the largest pile, this category will contain all the documentation you need to file for future reference. It’s paperwork that you absolutely have to keep. Again, there are key categories like finance, correspondence and information/resources.

Finance includes bank statements, paid bills, credit card statements, mortgage or loan information, donation receipts, receipts for major purchases, memberships, insurance paperwork, employment contracts and motor vehicle registration. Correspondence includes letters or faxes you need to keep. And information/resources includes business cards, warranties and equipment manuals, travel information and maps, study materials, creative ideas and professional memorabilia like certificates.

4. Flick it

Get rid of it! Toss it out! This will be one of the biggest piles of paperwork and should include anything you’re not sure about. If in doubt, toss it out. If you can replace the paper, for instance a print-out from a website or a brochure for something you might do, get rid of it now.

This pile includes unwanted receipts, out-of-date price lists, junk mail, newspapers, information on past events, newsletters and loyalty program brochures, out-of-date information, old cards and letters and excess stationery.

Applying the four Fs method

The four Fs is a decision-making tool. So unless the paper you come across in the course of sorting will save a life, don’t act on anything straightaway; stay with organising your paperwork into piles for now.

If you have many piles of paper to sort, allow 15 to 30 minutes per batch. As a very rough guide, a 10 centimetre pile of unsorted paper should take about 20 minutes to process. You will need four cardboard cartons, a Texta, a stapler or Esselte Nalclip dispenser and fasteners, and a large work space.

Use your stapler or Esselte Nalclip fasteners to keep like items together; for example, a two-page letter and multiple pages of a bill. Any document in an envelope should be removed and opened before sorting.

If you’re able to, work on the floor to organise your paperwork. Label each of your four boxes: finish it, forward it, file it and flick it. Position the boxes in an arc around you with the flick it container closest.

Grab a pile of paper and place it right in front of you. Take the top piece of paper and decide which of the four containers to put it in. Stay focused on the task at hand, and make a decision about one piece of paper before moving on to the next. This will help you handle each piece of paper only once.

Finally, keep only what really counts and don’t create a ‘not sure’ pile. I promise that every piece of paper you own will fall under one of these four categories.

When you’re done, recycle your paper and/or shred anything that is sensitive.

My challenge to you is this: If you can identify any piece of business paperwork that doesn’t fall into one of the four Fs, post a comment.

Lissanne Oliver is a Professional Organiser, Trainer, Author and TV presenter who helps organise people’s space. She is the best-selling author of "SORTED! the ultimate guide to organising your life - once and for all" (Hardie Grant Books).

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Hi Lissanne, I just read your article on about Organising Paper.
You might want to check out "Project Paperless" an initiative launched last month by Planet Ark founder, Jon Dee. It's goal is to reduce Australia's paper usage by 20% within 5 years.
www.projectpaperless.com.au
Kurt Carlsen from Sydney
I love the idea of wasting less paper but I think a paperless office is a myth. Disappointing that the site you mention doesn't give any tips without signing up - like most people, I could do with less in my in box! Lissanne Oliver from Fairfield, VIC | Read my articles
Excellent article, especially as people start to organize for a new year. I believe that you can become virtually paperless especially for the "file it" pile. In the world of scanners, pdf. files, email and memory sticks you can reduce the amount of paper you keep. You must however be deligient in back ups and security. I do work with paper on current projects but try to keep the printing to a minimum. Cathy McCann from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Kurt, I took the plunge and signed up...as Lissanne said no info yet has graced my inbox...I do wonder how companies like REDMAP as per the website you mentioned ~ compete with OCR scanners (Optical Character Recognition) and a free product like Google Desktop? Heather Smith from Brisbane
I used to work in a paperless doctors surgery. It was brilliant - we had to send all internal messages via computer and all case notes , pathology results, information sheets, messages etc were only available to staff on computer. Any paper that came into the office was scanned and the paper shredded. This is the only environment I have worked in that was truly paper FREE. One hospital in which I worked required records to be kept on two different computer systems as well as written paper records - an unbelievable waste of nurses' time reducing the all important patient contact time. No wonder the health system doesn't function very well. Susie from Hobart
Great comment Susie - that doctor's sugery is a rare thing! But the madness of that hospital......! Lissanne Oliver from Fairfield, VIC | Read my articles

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