Paper Organization Challenge – Day 5: 80 20 Rule

Paper Organization Challenge 80/20 Rule

Welcome to Day 5 of our Paper Organization Challenge! If you’ve been following along, you should have all your loose paper gathered into one spot, and sorted it all into broad categories. And finally, the papers that still need your attention should be sorted into a desktop file box. Way to go!

I imagine you’re now wondering what exactly to do with all the rest of your paper. Before you begin to worry about where all of it is going to fit, I’d like to remind you of the 80 20 Rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) as it applies to your piles of paper … it goes like this: you only refer to 20% of your paper, 80% of the time. That means there’s a huge percentage of your paper you rarely (if ever) actually refer back to. Think about this!

Today’s Challenge is to simply look at your piles of paper and think about this 80 20 Rule. Before we begin to make decisions over the next few days about what to do with your paper, I want you to get used to the idea that you may not need all of it. That’s it!

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