With the sheer amount of information and paper we encounter every day, it becomes essential to create a system of filing what we want to hold on to. This article provides tips for filing effectively in order to manage information overload.

Do you feel that the amount of items on your desk is out of control? When you face a mass of items on your desk, how do you tackle it? How do you whip that stuff into shape? Do you use a filing system to pare down what you encounter? You must file and the following explains how to better manage those files:

1. Determine What Can Be Tossed

Go through everything rapidly and determine what can be tossed; what duplicate or outdated items don't you need? With voluminous items that won't fit in your file folder, it's best to copy the handful of pages that you need from the larger report, file those few pages, and recycle the larger document.

"When in doubt, throw it out." These immortal words, uttered two decades ago by efficiency expert Edwin Bliss, are still true. If you are unsure about retaining something, in most cases you've already answered the question. The answer is no. If you are like most professionals, you have a tendency to over-file, which gluts your system and diminishes your ability to extract what you do need. If you have a problem with over-filing, use one drawer as a weigh-station for potential file items.

If you question whether or not to file an item, put it aside to look at again in a day or two. Often the answer becomes clear. Ask yourself, "What will happen if I don't retain this?" If there are no significant downside consequences, chuck it gleefully.

2. Look For Like Items

In that great mass of stuff before you, if there are eight items that refer to delegation, initiate a file folder labeled "delegation." Do the same with other groups of like items.

Continue wading through the entire pile, tossing what you can and grouping like items together, until everything is either tossed or grouped. Yes, some items will stand alone. Not to worry.

When approaching each of your mini-piles, ask yourself:
• Can I consolidate the number of sheets in each pile by using the back sides of documents, single paged copies, and shorter notes?
• Can I consolidate scraps and tidbits by laying them down on the copier to create a dossier page, or by stapling them together to create a packet?
• For the piles that only have one or two items in each, is there a way of grouping them together?

If you have an article on office chairs in one pile and notes and articles on organizing your desk in another, could you group the two piles together and call them "office furniture" (Editorial note: This is covered extensively in Breathing Space: Living & Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society. For more information, visit http://www.BreathingSpace.com)

3. Managing the Mini-piles

Go through all of the materials you've put into mini-piles for one last review to see if any of them are part of all-encompassing files such as "copiers" or "insurance." Always seek to have fewer large files of like items than many small files. You'll find it much easier to locate what you want in the course of your day, week, year, or career.

Use date stamping if it suits you, although this isn't necessary. Some efficiency experts suggest putting a date stamp on every item you file. This helps convey that if you've been holding onto an item for over 18 months and haven't used it, maybe it's time to chuck it.

It's not mandatory to use date stamping because an item's future relevance isn't necessarily related to how long you've been holding it. Still, the longer you've held onto an item, the less chance of it having future importance.

Customized File Headings

By using customized file headings, you can devise compartments that enable you to quickly and easily divert materials that cross your desk. If you often don't know where to file items, you can create a file called, "Where to file this?" I use a file called, "Check in one month."

Other handy file names you could use include:

• Read or chuck
• Read when I can
• Review for possible linkage with ABC project

You're the boss of labeling your files. By using creative file headings, you hone the system until it works best for you.

The key question you face continually when evaluating any item potentially worth filing is, "Where does this go?" Your quest becomes finding an appropriate file where you can find the item again easily. Hence, you'll often find yourself relabeling files. That's fine; you're further refining your system. It shows you're becoming an effective filer and that you're beginning to see the value of having a personal information retrieval system.

Monthly and Daily Tickler Files

You can benefit greatly by creating file folders for each month. Then, when something crosses your desk in December, but you don't have to act on it until February, you can place it in the February file.

A 31-day tickler file might be helpful. If you receive something on the second day of the month, but you don't have to deal with it until the 14th, put it in the file that's marked the 14th, or give yourself some slack and put it in the file marked the 13th.

You can use this system to pay bills on time. Write the checks in advance, sign them, seal them, stamp them, and put the envelope in the appropriate folder of your 31-day rotating tickler file. Review the tickler file at the start of each week, and perhaps once or twice during the week, and you'll automatically know that it's time to pay a bill, or address a date-filed item.

The monthly files and 31-day tickler files will help you to reduce clutter while offering you peace of mind. Although it's simple, it's also remarkably efficient.

As always, when you view something several days, weeks, or months after first filing it, you often have greater objectivity and a new chance to act on it, delegate it, or toss it. Much of what you put into your monthly files may get tossed before a given month arrives. This is fine. At least you had those things out of your environment for all that time.

Jeff Davidson is "The Work-Life Balance Expert®," is a preeminent time management authority, has written 56 mainstream books, and is an electrifying professional speaker, nearly 800 presentations since 1985 to clients such as Kaiser Permanente, IBM, American Express, Lufthansa, Swissotel, America Online, Re/Max, USAA, Worthington Steel, and the World Bank. Jeff is Executive Director of the Breathing Space? Institute; a popular speaker; and the author of numerous books, including:

• Simpler Living (Skyhorse Publishing)
• The 60 Second Innovator (Adams Media)
• Breathing Space (MasterMedia)
• Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time (Alpha/Penguin)

Jeff has been widely quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and USA Today. Cited by Sharing Ideas Magazine as a "Consummate Speaker," Jeff believes that career professionals today in all industries have a responsibility to achieve their own sense of work-life balance, and he supports that quest through his websites www.BreathingSpace.com and www.Work-LifeBalance.net and through 24 iPhone Apps at www.itunes.com/BreathingSpaceInstitute.