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June 4th, 2009

How do you administrate yourself?

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

Cartoon from We Blog Cartoons. It isn’t new, but I’m hoping no-one will notice.

My administrative systems are in a state of meltdown. I have never really got on top of the organisational side of running a business as many of you will be able to testify, but now it has got to the point of something needing to be done. I’d tell you more, but it is all rather embarrassing.

I think I need to get someone in.

What do you do? Do you have some sort of system that works, or do you pay someone else to organise things?

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16 Responses to “How do you administrate yourself?”


  1. Phil Groom says:

    I live in chaos; my wife lives in order: we each have our own study — it’s easy to tell the difference!

    One solution maybe: an industrial standard shredder?

    June 4th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
  2. Ben says:

    Hmm, If you find a solution to this, will you let me know too!

    June 4th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
  3. John Bennett says:

    I have heard piles of paper on floor described as “open-cast filing”

    June 4th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
  4. Andy Merrett says:

    Given how much of my work is based entirely online, it’s amazing how much paper I have amassed. The thing is, I’m pretty sure most of it is useless or already past deadline / actionability.

    I don’t actually have an answer to your question. It’d be too embarrassing to get someone in.

    June 4th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
  5. Dave says:

    Phil – My wife and I also have our separate ‘studies’ (if one could call them that) but since getting the new computer I now use both.

    Ben – yes. Hello and welcome by the way.

    John :)

    Andy. Yes, that sounds like me. My hope is that, by getting someone in, I’d force myself to do some of the sorting out thereby negating the need to get them in. So perhaps I need someone to threaten to be got in, without actually being got in (if I’m making myself clear).

    June 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
  6. Bob MacDonald says:

    At home – wife keeps the essentials, we share the annual turnover and throw out party
    At work – accountant keeps the essentials, all else is in piles and periodically pitched

    June 4th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
  7. Rural Vicar James says:

    Get someone in. If you can’t sort out the labelled box files yourself – find someone who can! My wife is not organized, I am, and so I do most of the admin. It seems to work out OK, we still get on! Admin stressed her – not me; find someone who enjoys admin – they do exist.

    June 4th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
  8. joe says:

    Depending on your precise status, the only thing you have to actually worry about is the taxman. Thinking that you have to get your tax affairs straight tends to focus the mind. Self assessment can be a headache, but doing a company return is worse IME – even getting stuff ready to send to the accountant is a bind.

    June 4th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
  9. Russ says:

    We have a tendency to leave things in piles, and have periodic sort-outs. My wife has the box file system, which seems to work but, like the proverbial garden, needs to be tended regularly or everything goes everywhere.

    June 5th, 2009 at 8:00 am
  10. Dave says:

    Joe, I am self employed so I do the same self assessment as everyone else except I do it all the night before the final deadline. Unfortunately there are quite a lot of other things that need to be worried about if I want to make a living.

    Today, buoyed by enthusiasm from this thread I am going to tackle the pile of all piles in my office.

    My problem is developing systems to make the ongoing things happen in an ongoing manner. These days it should be possible to automate everything using computers and things like that. That is the bit I need help with perhaps.

    June 5th, 2009 at 8:14 am
  11. Ben says:

    Thanks for the Welcome Dave. Been a lurker for a long time!

    I want to know what you do with your cartoons once you have uploaded them. Mine are building up on the piano stool at the moment..

    My systems don’t seem to work well. I am ok with digital files but paper just seems to linger and get everywhere.

    June 5th, 2009 at 10:42 am
  12. Claire says:

    Get someone in who will take time to understand you and help you find a sort of system that works for you. It doesn’t need to be fancy – you probably won’t stick to it! I don’t!

    June 5th, 2009 at 11:19 am
  13. Pam Smith says:

    When I got this on an email I thought you were offering an answer!

    ‘Open cast filing’ I love it – at the moment our back room, which accidentally became my office when I started working from home, has a path between the door and the patio window and the rest is pretty much boxes, piles of paper etc. You can track my various attempts to tame it by the labels on files and boxes saying things like ‘possible sermon resources – 1999 ->’ and ‘memorabilia – unsorted’.

    I went to a talk by an experienced vicar about how to deal with admin, he finally got someone in part time and put all the unsorted papers in 20 boxes in his attic – nine years later he’s sorted through all but 2 of them, and of course thrown most of it out.

    I don’t think there is an answer – except apparently (from the posts) above have a partner who is good at admin!

    June 5th, 2009 at 11:21 am
  14. Chris Clark says:

    If it was like this Dave then you would have to have extending arms or a ladder…

    the ladder would require health and safety procedures and as H is fairly near the beginning of the alphabet would be near the top so you would not be able to get it without a ladder ,,technically this is called deadlock or a deadly embrace…keep the documents on the floor Dave

    Some of my customers scan everything that comes in and then keep only the electronic copy…sounds good until one asks how you can read the 8″ floppy disks I used in the 1980s!

    June 5th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
  15. Janet Baxter Peltz says:

    Hooray, brother, you have seen the light! Hallelujah! One of the innumerable reasons we are a Mac family (us, all four children and their families) is that virus worries are nil. The oldest boy tells us that viruses are so difficult to write for the Mac that they are hardly worth the effort. Press on!

    June 8th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
  16. Heather says:

    Oh Dave – I felt all sad for you when I saw this. I too long for the peace of mind that can only come from having tidy paper work.

    I have several of these box files in grey and black. But I’ve also thought about having coloured ones. They have nice cerise and aqua coloured ones in Morrisons for £2.93 and I have stood and looked at them for some time. The aqua would look nice in the kitchen.

    I think I probably needs to keep some files in the kitchen where I open the post. Although I would have to keep most of them in the study as there is not much space in the kitchen. We do have some papers in a filing cabinet under the desk – but it is difficult to get papers in and out – so I wonder if we should do away with the cabinet.

    There is so much to think about before I can do anything with the papers.

    If you can afford to get someone in I’d do that – it will be the spur to make you do something in preparation – but they can so all the hard work. (We have cleaners once a week – partly to make us clear up before they come. Once they came and went away again because they said it was too untidy to clean.)

    June 12th, 2009 at 11:18 pm