Ducks in a row; a good practice to follow.

There is something to be said about having your "ducks in a row" when it comes to paper files and electronic documents. In a world of environmentally-conscience consumers, the practice of an efficient electronic filing system is crucial. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to provide documentation from months or years ago regarding an event that took place in another country. Needless to say, I have an extensive MS Outlook filing system. It's always been a practice of mine to keep things incredibly organized in case something terrible happened and I'm not able to make it to the office. I keep things organized so that anyone - literally could quickly search and find any document related to any specific subject. This way, they would also know where I left off in the project and what my next steps would have been. I can't tell you how many times this has come in handy.

When all your documents and projects are in order, it maximizes the efficiency of your work in general because you can quickly access documents. You don't have to spend excess time hunting for past communications or draft number 3 of 6. If you've found yourself in this situation before, take some time at the end of each week and sort through your inbox. File all documents first according to year and then according to project. From there, keep making sub-folders within each of the project folders according to the main topics of each project. Also, take advantage of the keyword rule within Outlook. You can create a rule which states that any emails that come to your inbox containing certain words go straight to a specified folder. This will certainly cut your manual filing time in half!