Online organizing: reducing the heaping piles of paper around your office requires an effective e-filing system on your computer.

• Author: Imholt, Betsy

How much time do you spend each day looking for that one memo, that presentation from last month, or that press release you know you had? Probably more than you realize. Studies show that the average executive spends six weeks each year looking for misplaced, misfiled or mislabeled documents. Six weeks? That's valuable time that could be spent accomplishing goals, and it equates to thousands of wasted dollars each year for employers.

Luckily, the information age is changing the way we store information. Rather than having to create, organize and maintain drawers and drawers of paper files, we are now able to keep most of the information we need on our computers in electronic files (or e-files). However, while keeping most of your files electronically will reduce the piles of paper around your office, you still need an effective e-filing system in order to avoid "virtual" clutter ... and the same exasperating searching for that document you need.

(Important to note: unless you have an intern who loves to scan, you will not be able to store everything you need on your computer. However, you can easily store all documents that your office creates electronically, rather than printing them out and putting them in files. Also, many people who send you hard copies of information will happily e-mail you an electronic version upon your request.)

To create an effective e-filing system, you must invest a little bit of time up front. And if you are organizing information that other people need access to as well, you'll need to include your colleagues in the planning process.

CREATING PERSONAL E-FILES

For your own files, try to create a structure similar to your paper filing system. For example, if you file your incoming constituent mail by issue area, then by last name, consider e-filing your constituent responses in the same fashion. If you don't have an effective filing structure already, it's time to create one.

Begin by thinking about the regular tasks you perform and the projects you're currently working on. Look for categories and subcategories. For example, you might create a category called "Policy Issues." Within that folder, you might have a subcategory entitled "Sponsored Legislation" and subsubcategories which might include Correspondence, Press Releases and Research.

Document your categories and subcategories for easy reference. Also, create a standard format for the names of documents. For example, an Aug. 14, 2004, press release on...