Stephen Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done Guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Today's topic is using file folders to track complicated processes. Karen wrote in,

I am a high school English teacher and am drowning in a sea of paperwork. How can I manage incoming and

outgoing papers? I get 125 papers in one day, 25 papers from five different classes. First of all,

on a personal note, Karen, thank you very much. I am in awe of high school teachers. It was

hard enough being a high school student once.

I can't imagine doing it day in and day out.

Of course, the job must certainly have great emotional benefits.

Our favorite math teacher, Mrs. Schlesinger, was invited to our high school reunion.

She was so touched to see where we went in life with her influence

that she cried. Or maybe it was seeing where we ended up, despite her influence, that made her cry.

Hmm. Either way, getting 125 papers a day would sure make me cry. I would use a couple of papers

from students I didn't like as tissues to blow my nose and didn't do what I do with any large pile of

papers. File, file, file. Wait a second, you're thinking, you can't file the papers. You're not done

with them. That's true. I can't file them in my reference files, but I can file them in my ongoing

process files. Just watch. Use your folders to track process. You have to

do stuff to all those papers. Maybe you read them, grade them, write comments, or feed them to your

dog. It's about time that teachers should be able to use the excuse, My Dogate, your paper.

As you recall from the episode on filing, a link is included in the

transcript, always file according to how you'll want to find them. How will you retrieve those files?

You'll probably be asking yourself one of a couple of questions. Where are the ungraded papers

so I can grade them? Where are the papers I'm done with so I can hand them back? And where are the papers

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