Overwhelmed? Here are my FOUR easy steps to sanity and dealing with paperwork overload

My LSTT method - Later, Sooner, Tomorrow, Today.

In my last blog I talked about managing our overburdened email inboxes and how to keep the demands on our time and energy down to more manageable levels. Now, I’m turning my attention to physical papers.

There are tons of books on how to get things done, time management, organising and the like, but all of them require time to put them into practice. I have developed a quick and dirty way of triaging my workload and piles of paperwork which sit on and around my desk from time to time so that I get the important things done first.

My LSTT method – Later . Sooner . Tomorrow . Today – lets you get your overwhelm under control and create order out of chaos.

It works with physical paperwork and also for task lists if you are feeling overwhelmed. If you have a bullet list of jobs, then break them down on separate pieces of paper (laundry, baking, shopping, dog trimming, phone calls, etc) or create your own list on your laptop or other device and pop the tasks into the four columns.

For those of us with both a pile of paperwork and a messy desk and physical tasks - notes for physical tasks and for paperwork - gather it ALL up into one huge pile. Write labels on scrap paper - 'LATER' 'SOONER' 'TOMORROW' 'TODAY'. Place papers on separate piles under these headings.

Piles sorted.

If you have separate filing baskets or trays for these that's great, but any flat surface will do to create your piles on.

Begin with 'today' and sort your tasks into their level of urgency, and do those tasks you can manage, or consider delegating others.

Begin with 'today' and sort your tasks into their level of urgency, and do those tasks you can manage, or consider delegating others. Delegating tasks can be done to spouses and partners, family members and kids, or your Virtual Assistant. Even if you delegate some of your urgent jobs, you’ll feel a huge sense of achievement, even if you didn’t clear the pile. Anything you don’t get done, leave on the ‘Today’ pile.

Before you finish for the day check the ‘Tomorrow’ pile and move anything which really  needs to be done the next day to the ‘Today’ pile. Are you seeing a pattern of activity here? I hope so!

 The  next day you can also take a look at the ‘Sooner’ pile and take some of it and move it to the ‘Tomorrow’ section.

 At the end of the week scan through the ‘Later’ jobs and decide on whether they really do need your attention, whether you can delegate or just forget about them altogether.

 Or, at any time during the day, if you're feeling you need a bit of a break - take a look at the 'Later' pile - which for me includes magazines I haven't read etc.

 You can apply the same principles to your bulging email inbox too, creating the LSTT folders and dragging emails into them. The beauty of using this for emails is that not only are they easy to drag and drop into various folders, but when it comes to the ‘Later’ folder, you can almost always delete everything in it if you haven’t taken a look in more than four weeks.

Give it a go and let me know how you go! I couple this method with my Bullet Journal where I record everything I need to do - more on that another time. 

 Let me know if you’ve got any other strategies or whether you’ve tried any of the ones I use.

 Have a virtual coffee with me!

Want to chat about how I can help you or your workplace be more organised let's connect over a virtual coffee.

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Nan Berrett creates visibility for small business as well as mentoring small business owners and startups to help them navigate the mountain of knowledge which seems to be part of our everyday life in a digital world. She is based in regional South Australia in the beautiful Clare Valley and is happy to travel to meet clients or chat over Zoom. Find out more or book some time to chat: www.wordsolutions.com.au