How a Clean Desk Can Make You More Money

Especially if you don't know what's in there. Put it in a bankers box and come back to it later.

Get new hanging file folders, plastic tabs, and file folders if the old ones are just too worn out. Don't colour code, long story short, it's just too much maintenance in the future and it turns into a barrier to organization.

Here's where it starts to get fun! It's time to dig through those piles and create categories that make sense for you and your work. Here are some ideas;
Marketing
Operations
IT
Sales
HR
Management
What's Next
Personal
Only keep what you need going forward. The more time you spend thinking about what are the best categories the more efficient your system will be.

Start putting your categories into file folders. If your business is big enough, you will also need subcategories within each of the broad categories. In fact, you may want to devote a whole drawer to one category, if you have that many subcategories. Now start using it, and see how easy it is to retrieve your important documents.

The Art of Filing is a great resource, but here's the part it misses: Use your digital calendar.
Whenever you receive an item that requires an action - put that task on your work calendar. Then you can file the paper away to be pulled out on the day you scheduled to work on that task.
When you master this system, you will be able to retrieve papers quickly, stay focused on 1 task at a time, and accomplish more in less time!

Now that you've set-up the system. Here's a great way to avoid extra clutter and extra filing: The Art of Filing has some words of wisdom: "Avoid saving unnecessary documents
"Don't make a habit of saving everything that finds its way to you."
Take a few seconds to glance through the content, and save a file only if it's relevant to your work activity. Having too many unnecessary documents adds to clutter and makes it harder to find things in the future. Be selective about what you keep!"