5 Learn to love your wastepaper bin and shredder! How often have you
kept something to read later, knowing full well that you would never
actually look at it again—except to remind yourself that you didn’t want to
look at it? Allow a decent period of time to elapse and then feel free to
‘weed’ the files.
6 Label your paperwork with post-its. These stand out easily from the
papers themselves, and you can write on them short messages to remind you
of exactly what you are going to do with each of the papers, and save you
having to read them all again in order to work this out. You can make your
own colour codes with the post-its, maybe to remind you of the ‘urgent’, or
the ‘important’, as opposed to the ‘routine’.
7 Use plastic wallets. These are invaluable for making sure that all the papers
that need to be kept together stay together. How often have you spent ages
searching for that last sheet which has somehow escaped from a set of papers
—or (worse) the first sheet?!
8 Use alternatives to paper. Would a telephone call be a sufficient response?
Can you use e-mail? Electronic communication is quicker, less protocol-
bound, avoids paper and saves photocopy costs.
9 Save paper. Use notice boards for things you want everyone in your
department or section to see. For non-urgent dissemination, circulate a
single copy of a document with a ‘pass on to...’ list, rather than sending
everyone a copy—people who want their own copy can spend their own
time making one! Make sure that the single copy is destined to end up in a
sensible place at the end of its circulation, either back to you, or preferably
in the departmental office for filing there.
10 Take your paperwork with you. Paperwork can often be done in odd
moments between other tasks, and if you have it with you it is possible to
make good use of such opportunities. But don’t carry too much around with
you; don’t carry home more than you could reasonably expect to be able to
do overnight or over a weekend. How often have you only had time to look
at a fraction of the pile you carried home?
11 Keep your paperwork output to a minimum! You will earn the gratitude
of your colleagues if you don’t add to the pile in their in tray: use e-mail or
the telephone. Keep any written work short and make it clear what you want
them to do with it.94 500 TIPS FOR TESOL