Information overload
Once you finishing filling the streams of paper, you’ll soon realise that the next thing to come your way is data in the form of emails, contacts, and client details, and just like paper it needs to be filled correctly. Here’s how to deal with it;
Folders directory - Make sure you set-up a good folder directory to store all the information you will receive. You should have a folder for things like, accounts, admin, employees, stationary, newsletters and so on.
Contacts - If you use emails to any degree make sure you store your contacts details properly, including their full name, their company, contact numbers and your association with them.
Emails - In your email application make sure you setup a folder system, and emails are filled accordingly.
Client details - Invest in a good client database system, either an off-the-shelf one or a basic database. Your client details are valuable, they should be held, safely, securely and be easily accessible.
Passwords - These should ideally not be stored anywhere but if you find it impossible to remember the access passwords to the 30-40 website’s you've registered with, store them in a single password protected, encrypted database, or invest in a specialist application.
Accounts - Anything that is accounts related, store the original on your computer but print out a copy and put in your physical filling system.
Back-up - Make sure you have a back up system, at its most basic you should have a set of 6 USB thumbs drives, then every month copy your main data to one. Once you’ve used up the 6th one start from the first again, this way you at least have a 6 month rolling back-up should things go wrong. Remember to store the USB drives off-site
Data can come at you from all and every direction and in order to deal with it properly it’s important to deal with it as soon as it comes in. It’s important to be able to get to the information you need in a timely fashion, that’s only possible if you file it correctly.
