Paper Management 101
by Michele Novotni, Ph.D.
Papers, papers everywhere and never the one I need. Many adults with AD/HD or Learning Disabilities are drowning in a sea of paper. With each visit by the mailperson, the paper mountain grows. Our computers add to the mountain with the all-too-familiar “You’ve Got Mail.”
In addition, forms, reports, and offers flood our offices and homes, not to mention the newspapers, magazines, and paperwork from our children’s schools. Many adults with LD, who have difficulties in reading, spelling, and grammar, often give up trying to stay on top of it all.
A number of my clients have told me that their piles of materials to sort through and read take over entire rooms. In addition to adding to a sense of failure, anxiety and/or depression, Learning Disabilities often create barriers to relationships--especially in that area of written communication. People expect us to be able to respond.
Staying on top of reading and paperwork, for adults with LD, requires inventive strategies. As a coach, I work with people to develop structures and strategies to support efficient communication. Consider the following:
Recognize that paperwork is necessary in maintaining relationships, as paperwork is necessary to maintain jobs.
Ask people to call and leave voice messages rather than send written materials if it is easier for you to process verbal communication.
Consider hiring a personal assistant to read through your paperwork once a week for you. A reader can highlight the information that you are most interested in and which needs your response. College students are great at this task and will charge only about $10 an hour. In a few hours, you can whittle your paperwork down to a manageable amount.
Check out the new technology that makes written communication easier. It is now possible to speak into a microphone and have your computer automatically type the words, using a program such as the new DragonSpeak. You can also organize your thoughts using mindmapping software, such as Inspiration, to provide needed structure.
Check out the Kerzweil machine that actually reads papers for you. In the past these machines were used by individuals who were blind, but many with AD/HD and LD are now finding them very helpful. Many colleges have them in their libraries. They are available in a smaller size for home and office use.
Keep a dictionary and calculator handy.
E-mail management:
request that people write to you in “bullet” form
request that people highlight the section(s) they especially want you to read
ask people to mark e-mails that you need to read by putting your name in the To: line, and to put your name in the cc section if you are being mailed only for information purposes
ask not to be sent nonessential e-mails
always use spell check and grammar check, and review your e-mails to—catch errors
Any strategies and structures that help you get through the mountains of paperwork will help you develop and maintain relationships at home and in the office.
Michele Novotni, Ph.D., is a psychologist, executive coach, author, and speaker specializing in AD/HD. She is the president of ADDA, the national Attention Deficit Disorder Association. She can be reached at michelenovotni@yahoo.com.
Make Pals With Paper
Overwhelmed by the deluge of documents that comes your way? This system eliminates paper clutter and makes you more productive.
by Judith Kolberg
Like many of my clients, Sheila has trouble keeping up with her papers. OK, that’s putting it mildly; her apartment is one giant in-box, filled with letters, articles, bills, and receipts. “Here’s the thing,” says Sheila. “If I clip an interesting magazine article—and they’re all interesting to me—or get a tempting credit card solicitation, it’s here to stay. I can’t act on it right away, so I put it aside, so that I’ll have it when I figure out what to do with it.”
Each month, the average U.S. household receives 80 pieces of junk mail, three magazines, six catalogs, and 10 credit card solicitations. And that’s just snail mail. When you add receipts, articles clipped from magazines, and ATM slips, it’s no wonder that piles of paper are as common in our homes as furniture (and sometimes are the furniture).
Barbara Hemphill, an ADDer and the author of Taming the Paper Tiger, sums up the problem this way: “The stacks represent unmade decisions. It’s difficult to focus long enough to make a decision about each piece of paper. And if a document needs to be filed, an ADDer can think of 17 different ways to file it. Then there’s the fact that managing paper is boring. Our minds wander off task.”
Maybe our children’s children will have their reading material stored in a belly-button-sized nanocomputer. For now, we’re stuck with paper.
Documents represent actions
What’s the solution to your paper problem? Stop treating each piece of paper in your home as something lifeless. Instead, see each as an action to take.
Let’s say you’re digging out from under stacks of paper. Sort everything into three categories. “Toss” papers get discarded. “File” papers get filed. Papers that require more nuanced action go into your “Action” pile; I’m talking about anything that necessitates a phone call or an e-mail, that must be given to someone else, that requires faxing, that requires a signature, that pertains to an ongoing project, and so on.
Sort quickly, and don’t agonize over your decisions. Ask a friend or family member to be your “body double,” working alongside you and mirroring your actions. Or, like Sheila, you can hire a professional organizer.
Recently, I spent four hours helping Sheila sort her papers. She had no trouble figuring out which papers were Toss, File, or Action. The only challenge was figuring out what to do with the papers that wound up in the Action pile. Well, as I told Sheila, I have a system for that, too. It’s called Paper-Action-Next Encounter, or PANEC.
Tackling your “Action” pile
The idea of PANEC is to take each piece of paper in the Action pile and write on it the very next action that is needed. Not the final action, mind you, or all of the actions to take. Just the next action, described with attention-getting words and phrases. Move each annotated Action document to a place you think will prompt you to actually complete the action.
Like most of my clients, Sheila got PANEC right away. On a page ripped from a catalog, she wrote “Order by June 1.” On a credit card offer, she wrote “Apply or Die.” She put both papers on her desk, because that’s where she takes care of financial activities. Grocery coupons? She taped them to the refrigerator. She wrote “Give to Bobby.” on an article about hybrid cars, and then stuck it in her son’s sneaker (the only place he’s sure to see it). And she taped an application she needs to complete to her bathroom mirror, so she’ll see it each morning until it’s done.
Sheila takes about 20 Action papers at a time and distributes them around the house to their Next Encounter locations. She says that makes the process less monotonous, and helps her dissipate pent-up energy. You may prefer to do things a bit differently. That’s OK, as long as you stick with the basic idea.
PANEC works for ADDers because it reduces the uncertainty about what to do with each paper. Everything is either Toss, File, or Action. Just make sure not to cycle papers endlessly. If you move a document more than twice, your call-to-action phrase probably isn’t specific enough—or maybe you need more information to decide what action to take.
Depending on how many papers you have, digging out might take one morning or several days. Once your paper-handling system is in place, you can keep paper clutter to a minimum. What sweet relief!
By Judith Kolberg, co-author of ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life and other books on organization (squallpress.net). She lives in Atlanta and can be reached at info@fileheads.net.
©2006 ADDitude. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited.
‘Emotional’ filing
Stick a piece of paper in a folder, jot a name on the tab, and put it out of sight: Face it, filing is sooo boring that you’ll probably do almost anything to avoid it. When you do file something, you may have trouble retrieving it later on. Did you file the title to your car under Car? Auto? Ford Taurus? What a nightmare!
It’s better to let your filing system reflect how you remember things. “I never forget that my children's immunization records are filed under “SHOTS,” says my client, Marcia. “I used to put them under ‘HEALTH’ or each child’s name, but ‘SHOTS’ says it all.” She filed the title to her breakdown-prone car under “LEMON.”
You can also try using Paper Tiger software (thepapertiger.com). It lets you create multiple key words for each file, so there’s no need to remember one specific word.
Whatever filing system you use, don’t be an “infomaniac.” Impose limits on what you save.