On Your Way to Getting Organized - Part 2

Getting organized is a great way to increase productivity. If you’ve created a plan and an Organizing To-Do List, it’s time to get started.

By this time, you should have already begun to assess your file situation. Organizing your files can be a big job, especially if you haven’t done that from the beginning. You’ll want to do a little at a time. Don’t try to completely reorganize your filing system in one fell swoop. It’s best to start by listing the major categories under which you’ll fill your work and notes. If you write fiction, you’ll probably only have two categories—short fiction and novels—plus any other genres you work with. In this system, you’ll want to create a separate subcategory for each book you write since books tend to accumulate a large volume of notes.

If you write non-fiction, then your filing system will be more complex since most non-fiction writers work in several subject categories. You’ll not only have the subject categories, but also article and book categories. And as with fiction, each book will become its own subcategory under books. You may also have research materials—notes, clippings, booklets, etc.—to file.
Creating a filing plan is essential.

Since you’ll be working on our files for some time, let’s turn to organizing your overall office space. As to where to start, you have two choices—begin with the space that will be the easiest to organize or start with the hardest and most frustrating, better known as the “hot spot.” If you choose the latter, you may find it tough going for a while, but once you figure out the solution to the “hot spot,” you’ll find it much easier to continue.

While it’s best to organize things right in your office, you may want to designate a recycling area in which you can immediately put anything that needs to be recycled. This includes paper and cardboard, magazines, old books, plastic and glass, etc. Be sure to gather some sturdy boxes in which you can place these items so you won’t have to repack them later.

Before you begin organizing your office, you should gather containers in which to store like items. Check office supply stores, dollar stores, and discount stores for various types of containers. They come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, so you won’t have any problem finding just the ones you need. Look at the items you have now and figure out what types of containers you’ll need—trays, crates, baskets, drawers, etc. Match the container to the item that will be stored in it. Measure the item(s) and storage space first, then search for the container to fit that space.  Or start with the container, say plastic crates, and build shelves to hold them.

While filing cabinets may seem the logical way to store your files, you’ll never have enough filing cabinet space to hold all your files. Use filing cabinets for only your active files. All others can be stored in filing boxes in your attic or basement or another room.

As a writer, you’ll most likely have a collection of reference books, as well as books you’ve read or are planning to read. Book storage can take up a lot of space. Unlike non-writers who give away or trade books they’ve read as soon as they’re finished, you may want to hold on to more than a few as references or to read again for technique. The number of books to store adds up fast. You can never have too many bookshelves in your office. One small three-shelf unit won’t do. You’ll need floor-to-ceiling units with shelves of various heights to hold all the books in your collection. Plan these out carefully for the most efficiency.

And create a system to organize your books. The Dewey system works for libraries and a modified version can work well for your book collection. In any event, group your books by subject and in alphabetical order. And when you use a book, put it back in its original place. At some point, you may want to create database of your books—first, to help you know if you have a particular book and second, to make it easier to find it.

Next week, I’ll show you how to put everything in its P-L-A-C-E, an acronym for a five-step process to help you unclutter your office, the first step to true organization.

Organizing for Success

You’re in the midst of a project and you need some information that you know you have in a file from a previous article. But try as you might, you just can’t put your hands on that file. After an hour or more looking for it, you become frustrated and give up. By now, the motivation you had to continue writing has passed, so you do something else. Annoying as this situation may be, it’s an all-to-common occurrence among writers. If you were better organized, perhaps this wouldn’t happen.

Even in today’s seemingly paperless world, writers usually amass a huge volume of paper files and books. Most like to have information at their fingertips. And while you can easily search for anything on the Internet, there are some offline sources that you’ve gathered that you prefer to use.

So how can you organize your writing office for the most efficiency which will eventually lead to more writing jobs. Having information at hand means that you can complete jobs faster and in the end increase your income.

To get organized, it’s best to start out with a plan. Think like a journalist. The key is the five W’s—who, what , when, where, and why—plus how. Answer these concretely to know what to keep and what to discard.

Naturally, you’ll want to keep a file on each article and story your write and several, if not a whole file box full, for each book. All those files will take up valuable space. If you don’t allow for them in your overall plan for your office, then you will be undermined later on.

Photos of home offices in magazines and on the Internet show perhaps one or two filing cabinets. That’s just unrealistic. While they may contain frequently used files, all the rest of the files must be hidden. In fact, you should consider a second storage area in your home for your archived files. These are all the ones from finished writing projects. While you may be lucky to have a basement, attic, or garage in which to store them, others living in smaller spaces may have to resort to offsite self-storage, which over time can be expensive.
                                       
You need to get organized from the start to increase productivity, but it’s never too late to start. Don’t try to do it all at once. Organize one part of your office at a time----books, files, research notes, photos, etc.

Let’s begin with files, both computer and paper. Start by finding the right containers. Filing cabinets work for files used often while cardboard filing boxes, sold at office-supply stores, work well for archived files. In the beginning, you’ll probably combine subjects in one box, but later on, you’ll need to divide boxes up by subject. Keep your system logical to make it easy to find what you want. Alphabetizing always helps.

Do the same with your computer files. Don’t follow Window’s or MAC’s plan and put all your files in one folder. Think of the folders in your computer the same way you think of those in your filing cabinets and boxes. In fact, you may want to create dividers for your paper files that match the names of the folders in your computer that contain related files.

A good way to ensure that you don’t lose any of your work is put install a second hard drive—or  have someone else do it for you. Another alternative is to use an external hard drive that connects to our computer via a USB cable. Either way, your files will be safe if your computer crashes. Unless your second hard drive, dedicated to your data, fails, your files will be safe because when a computer crashes, it’s the main drive that does so.

Next week, we’ll look at continuing the process, but before then, create a plan of organization and make an Organizing To-Do List.