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How to Sort Papers When You Have Paper Piles Everywhere!
This is for when you have piles of paper everywhere and need a triage method to sort and reduce the paper. The complete version of this method can be found in the Appendix of my book “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD.” The book is available through Amazon or go to my website (www.abigailwurf.com/writing) to click on the direct link to purchase. The book covers: starting and completing tasks; time management; managing your money; setting morning and evening routines; simplifying your daily life; communicating; relationships; career and working and, of course, the basics on managing ADHD. This is followed by an appendix that includes over 75 helpful apps that may be of interest divided by topic, the paper sorting method, recommended books and how to find the right coach for you.Step 1: The Initial Sort
Assumptions:
• Paper is everywhere.
• There are different types of papers and documents.
• There is no space clear enough to organize them.
Actions:
• You are clearing off your desk or table for a fresh start
• Get a big box or basket
• Dump enough of the paper into the container so that you can clear a space to work.
• Don’t read the papers as you do this, it will slow you down.
• Also get out a large trash bag, shake it out so it’s ready, and put it to one side of you but within easy reach.
• Put the container on the other side of you within easy reach.
• Take 4 index cards or sticky notes and make a tent out of each one by folding it in half.
• Label them as follows:
o Important Papers to Store
o Papers Needing Immediate Action
o Papers Needing Future Action
o Papers to File
• Place and spread out the tented labels on the clear surface you have created. These are your 4 quadrants on your clear surface.
• Begin to sort the papers from the container into the labeled quadrants. Work quickly and efficiently.
• Once you identify what the paper is, put it in the proper quadrant.
• This is a “down and dirty” sort. Speed is key because you want to move as much of the paper as possible into the trash. If you stop and read the pieces of paper it will be harder to throw out the ones you don’t need. Trust me on this.
• Do this in one sitting. Remember, fast!
Step 2: The Second Sort
Assumptions:
• There are now 4 piles of paper plus the trash bag.
• You have a space from which to work that only has the 4 paper piles.
Actions:
• Take the first pile (Most Important Papers to Store) and review them to make sure they can’t be weeded down any more. If they can, do it now. The more you get rid of the better and easier the papers will be to store and find when necessary.
• Place these important documents in a safe place, whether it is a safe, a bank deposit box, a fireproof box or a secret compartment in a giant teddy bear. It doesn’t matter just as long as you are consistent where you store important papers.
Step 3: Sorting Papers Needing Immediate Action
Actions:
• Take the pile of “Papers Needing Immediate Action” and put them to one side. In front of you clear enough space for 3 piles – A, B and C
• Start with the first piece of paper in the “Papers Needing Immediate Action” and decide if the paper is:
• A = Super urgent/Important?
• C = Not very urgent at all/kind of unimportant?
• B = Middling between the two?
• Start making piles with the A pile to your left, the C pile to your right and the B pile directly in front of you.
• Continue to sort all the paper from “Papers Needing Immediate Action” pile. Once you get the hang of sorting into the 3 categories you may need to go back and re-sort the first few papers you sorted when you where not clear what counted as an A, B or C.
• Once you’re done with this, take pile A and sort those papers in order of immediate importance. If need be, simply do another A, B, C sort of your A paper pile. I think of this sort as Aa, Ab, and Ac. Then stack the 3 piles with Aa on top, Ab, in the middle and Ac on the bottom. Set this pile aside.
• Now do the same with the B pile – Ba, Bb, and Bc.
• Now do the same with the C pile – Ca, Cb, and Cc.
• Take the 3 new piles and stack them all A sorted pile on top, all B sorted pile in the middle and all C sorted pile on the bottom.
You have completed sorting “Papers Needing Immediate Action.” Take the tented label you made for these papers and put it on top of the whole pile and set aside.
Step 4: Sorting Papers Needing Future Action
• Repeat the whole A, B, and C sorting system. The sort each of the A and B pile like you did before creating Aa, Ab, Ac, Ba, Bb and Bc. Stack the papers in that order once done with A on the top, B on the bottom. This is only for the A pile and B pile. Put the label Papers Needing Future Action on top of the pile and set aside.
• Take the C pile, yes, I didn’t forget the C pile, and throw those into the trash! You will never get to those C’s needing further action so you might as well just toss them. If they were going to get done and were of some importance, they would not have been put in the C pile. Don’t cheat – throw them out!
Step 5: Setting up categories for your pile of Papers to File.
Actions:
• A classic mistake made at this point is to great a gazillion file categories. Don’t do this because you will forget the system and never find what you need when you need it. Nor will you file papers in the moment because you will not remember the complicated system you created.
• Create a simple list of categories and then make a file folder for each category. Sort the Papers to File into the file folders always looking for papers that you can get rid of. Keep the categories broad.
• This list might look like:
Bank Records
Cars and Other Vehicles
Children (One file per child)
Contacts
Financial Records
Home
Important Papers
Medical and Health Insurance Records
Memberships
Pets
Work Records
Vacation and Travel
Each category is explained in my book’s appendix (www.abigailwurf.com/writing).
My book explains this process in greater detail, if you have found this abbreviated version difficult follow, and is available through Amazon. http://bit.ly/2iO3RTp.
Quote:
“It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.” Frank Zappa
To Tell or Not to Tell You Have ADHD
To Tell of Not to Tell, That is the Question!
I often get the question of whether or not you should share if you have attention difficulties. I will cut the chase, the answer is preferably not to the general public.
Different people have different belief systems when it comes to attention deficit issues. Some believe they exist and others don’t. Some think ADHD diagnoses are overdone whereas others think not everyone is being diagnosed.
Clients often ask me if they should tell their supervisor or employer they have ADHD or some attention deficit issues. Unless it is a unique situation it is best not to. Aside from the risk of them not believing in attention deficit disorders, the knowledge about you can backfire in various ways.
The story I most often think about in regards to this is an old client of mine who had a great relationship with her supervisor. My client was struggling to get her work done and her supervisor kept asking how she could help her. Finally my client explained about the ADHD and they set up some systems to help my client get things done in an easier manner. Things went great. My client was able to finally thrive at her job.
Unfortunately, my client’s supervisor left and as she was leaving, she mentioned to the new supervisor about my client’s ADHD. I believe the old supervisor was trying to be supportive and helpful to both my client and the supervisor’s replacement. Unfortunately, the new supervisor did not believe in ADHD. Said it was an excuse and stopped doing the supportive systems my client’s previous supervisor did.
Ultimately, my client left that employment because the new supervisor saw her as a person who was trying to get out of things, wanting extra support and basically a person filled with excuses.
It is stories like these that make me inclined not to share mental health issues because there are still stigmas attached. Because of my profession I am able to be very public about my ADHD because it attracts clients but if I were in another industry I would be much more circumspect.
I don’t like telling people to be silent to their “public” about ADHD but until the minds and hearts of all employers understand about ADHD we unfortunately need to be carefully whom we tell and whom we not tell.
Really Listening
I recently heard a TED Talk about listening. As opposed to hearing, real listening involves paying attention to whom your talking to. Appreciating what they are saying. And then follow up summarizing what they have said or asking a question regarding what was said. This is different to hearing someone talk while you are thinking about what you want to say.
Real listening is an energetic and compassionate act because people want to be truly listened to and heard. Conversations are not a race. Instead, conversations are made up of dialogue that is an exchange of ideas and/or opinions among two or more people.
When you feel listened to what is the listener doing while you are speaking. Start paying attention when speaking as to when you feel listened to. Observe what the other person is doing. Notice their body language, eye movement and any sounds they are making. You will begin to notice that some people are better listeners than others. Try mirroring what the other person was doing while you were speaking when they are speaking.
The more you give off signs of listening, the more likely people will reciprocate in listening actively and compassionately to you. It is nice to be heard.
Get Specific with Your Goals
As I have been “onboarding” new clients recently, I have been having “What are your goals?” discussion with each of them. One thing that struck me was although, sometimes with prompting, people know what their goals are generally. They haven’t thought past the surface of what they want to achieve. In order for a goal to be successful you need to get more specific than “I want more money.” That is too ambiguous to be a successful goal.• How much money exactly?
• How do you want to receive it? A chunk or gradually throughout the year or over a lifetime?
• What actions can you take immediately to reach this goal?
• What long-term actions do you need to take to make this happen?
• What resources do you already have to help you achieve your money goal?
• What resources do you need to acquire to achieve your money goal?
• Where are you exactly now financially?
The list could go on, but I think you get the idea. The more specific you are with your goals the easier it is to act and therefore more likely you will reach your goals.
Talking Back to Your Inner Critic
A colleague of mine suggested a book called Playing Big. It is about women stepping forward and playing in a bigger arena. I haven’t finished the book yet but was struck by the beginning of the book talking about our “inner critic.” The author put this in the framework of women’s issues but I believe we all suffer from the “inner critic.”
The inner critic is the judgmental voice inside our head telling us how we can’t do things or how we will fail if we try something different. The inner critic is very black and white in its thinking. We are bad or good and nothing in between. We are too lazy or too hyper, too righteous or too insecure, and so on.
That inner critic is basically saying you don’t measure up, you’ll come up short, you’re not ready yet because you didn’t prepare enough and so it goes on and on.
How do we silence our inner critic – we don’t but we can talk back to our inner critic.
Questions like:
What proof do you have?
What are your biases?
Why do you keep saying that negative observation?
How are we not good enough, show me?
The inner critic often doesn’t have proof without distorting past events to get to that proof.
We can take on the inner critic and win by being dispassionate about it’s absurdities.
The inner critic can be challenged by facts, objective observations, and proof.
The inner critic also often forgets the progress we make and tries to pull us backward to dwell in difficulties we have already overcome.
We need to combat this by pointing out our successes and forward movement on past struggles because that is what they are – past. We don’t need to buy a ticket and revisit those low moments unless it is to point out moments of having conquered those struggles or lightened those low moments to moments of grace.
When is your inner critic most vocal? What are you doing or thinking that brings out the judge? Are you just thinking lazy and not staying present with where you are at now as opposed to then, whatever the “then” represents to you.
I believe in a firm hand when taking on your inner critic or judge. Don’t let insidious little whispers of the inner critic going by unchecked. Always challenge it – is this lazy thinking on my part? What do I really know to be true?
How to Be Aware of Your Blindspots!
I was backing out of a parking space in a parking lot and I was about a foot out when loud honking started. I looked and discovered a car also backing out at the same time. Now I had checked my mirrors and luckily I always back out slowly so I was able to stop easily in time.
The location of the other car must have been in my blindspot because I checked carefully all my mirrors before backing out. In my mind I had done what I was supposed to do – check all my mirrors – waited until everything was clear behind me. None-the-less the other car and I almost collided.
This event made me think when I got back to my office. You can be doing everything right and still have blindspots that are holding your success back. Often these blindspots are simple to spot if we slow down and think about what we are about to do and why we believe we should do it. Take a moment to think what else is pending and then be pro-active so that nothing sneaks up on you unexpectedly.