They usually have a few reasons for stacking papers instead of taking action including:

• They haven’t made a decision about each piece of paper

• They want to remind themselves of tasks they need to do

• They’re afraid of filing a piece of paper and never seeing it again

• They don’t have specific places to put their papers

• They want to keep the piece of paper “just in case”

These reasons make sense and you may use the same ones, but they don’t have to keep you from reducing the stacks of paper in your home office.

Instead of beating yourself up about not handling paper once, follow the “Move it Forward” rule. From the minute you bring a piece of paper into your office, do something to move that information forward, including putting my P-A-P-E-R system to work:

Put it in a stacking bin
Act on it
Put it in a file
Enter it on your to-do list and file it
Recycle it

When you follow the Move it Forward rule, you don’t have to make final decisions about what action to take. Instead you’re moving the paper one step closer to where it ultimately will end up.

It may feel strange at first to do something with each piece of paper instead of just setting it aside. But when you get used to moving paper forward, you’ll see fewer stacks of paper in your home office.