To Toss, or Not to Toss?

“To Toss…” Let me say first of all, just because things are interesting to you isn’t a good enough reason to keep them around. I know people that have held on to 20 years of paperwork that can't move around their office. Now that may be extreme for most of us yet consider what you may be holding onto that just is not needed. Perhaps it may be 10 years worth or reference materials that may be out of date, old cookbooks that you no longer use since you discovered a great website where you can find any recipe in minutes, or perhaps just 5 years or more worth of utility bills and user manuals for products you don't even own. Let's take a moment to consider how to make your life and workspace better by eliminating the excess now, making room for what is truly important to you instead. Let me give you a good example of where you can start a little purging. Consider this... Everything that could, in theory, be used at the right time under the right conditions, sometime in the future, should be tossed. You either have a need for it or you don't. I wanted this article to be helpful and practical so to help you determine what those items are, here are 8 simple questions to ask yourself. To get going what you will need to do is to grab all the piles of papers, books, articles and references that you have been holding onto for reading and take each one in your hand as you ask yourself: <ul> <li>How often will I need to refer to this information?</li> <li>Is the information relevant to my work or life? </li> <li>Will it add something new to what I already have in my collection? </li> <li>Is it a duplicate of something I already have? </li> <li>Is it current and up-to-date? </li> <li>Can I get it somewhere else should I need it? </li> <li>Do I have time to read this information? </li> <li>Do I need, or simply want it?</li> </ul> Be honest, be ruthless and make the decision now to toss what is safe to toss. And now, what “Not to Toss…” In addition to making decisions on what to toss, the following 6 guidelines are important to deciding on what not to toss. I certainly don't want you to toss something of value during this process so carefully review these points so you know when it is time to keep things too: <ul> <li>Replication would be very difficult. </li> <li>There is no other copy available. </li> <li>It is a vital piece of a project or client file. </li> <li>The document is your original creation. </li> <li>The information will be needed again soon. </li> <li>The law requires you to keep it.</li> </ul> On the last note, for items that you are required to keep for legal reasons I have found that there is a lot of good information on the web on that subject. Yet, if you run across something you're just not sure about, my advice is to speak with your accountant or other tax professional before making the final toss. Tip: Remember to have bins or boxes to hold the items to Recycle or Shred as needed. And remember to protect yourself. Shred documents containing personal date or confidential information on you or your company. 2009-10-29T22:07:39Z