By: Blonde One
You will by now be very familiar with the amount of paperwork that lives on my desk (I seem to go on about it enough!). Well I was explaining to Blonde Two this weekend about the system I have adopted to help me manage it. It’s a very good filing system that I would encourage you all to adopt and use as often as possible. Here are the highlights:
1. File number 13. This is commonly known as ‘the bin’ and the one next to my desk is well used. It can also refer to the delete button on my emails.
2. The round file in the corner. This is also ‘the bin’.
3. File 101. This is for anything that I don’t want to do, I don’t like doing or anything that I think I could avoid doing within the next 6 months.
4. The turquoise file with the wording ‘Futile attempt at organising my life’. This one is for things that I am enthusiastic about doing but that don’t need doing with military precision. This is a happy file full of exciting plans and promises.
5. The black file labelled ‘Two Blondes’. A very smart, official looking file for the company cheque book and all other manner of important documents. This file is not to be messed with! (Needless to say, Blonde Two has an identical file to this one.)
This particular Blonde system is working well and gets well used (especially 1 and 4).
Wow! A system! My equivalent of files 3 & 4 are the bedroom floor. File 1 is the kitchen table. I have 4 of file 2, but mostly empty. File 5 is tucked away in at least three different places which I won’t list here. The total effect is designed to
1. Trip burglars up.
2. Drown them in dust.
3. Make it impossible for them to be in the house long enough to find anything.
4. Suggest to them that next door would be easier to tackle.
P.S. Whatever they want, they won’t find it in the filing cabinets of which I have 4 – – –
That is very funny. I am going to report you to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Burglars!!)
Whatever you say, B1, you’re still comparatively well organised. The first real step towards administrative disintegration is when you grab an old rumpled file (crusty round the edges) and scrawl Pending – in pencil – on the front. Then sit around and watch its pregnancy develop. A pregnancy that will never end in childbirth.
A month later you start checking the terms of your pension fund.