You have probably discovered already that your online business generates a lot of paper. Funny that. So, how do you create an offline filing systems for your online business? How do you keep track of all that paper that seems to come spilling out of your printer. You know that it's important; so what do you do with it?




Hands up if you have as much space on your desk to work as you'd like!





That's what I thought. I don't have enough room either. And one of the most annoying things is that the family seems to think that the mail and anything else that they can think of ought to get dropped on your desk as well.





How can you create a place for everything you need without losing it before you even get started.





Here are some suggestions.





1. Decide what categories will be easiest for you to remember.





Obviously, you can't have a separate file for everything that you print. That means that you need to create categories for similar documents.





2. Products





You probably will want a file for each of your products. That would include all of your development notes and any information about your prices.





3. Web pages





You may want to print each of your web pages and file them as well. If you lose your connection, these backups will enable you to see what you have. You may also want to keep a list of all of the URLs you have, the login pages with their login details. This would include your web host, autoresponder, shopping cart, and blog. Few things are as frustrating online as not being able to login to a site that belongs to you.





4. Suspense files





This is something I observed when I was in the US Air Force. The unit clerk had a folder for every day in the month, numbered from 1-31. Whatever was due on a particular day of the month was put into that folder. Then each day, the contents of that file were taken out.





All of us were able to use it. I used it for, among others things, to remind me to ready various regulations so that I would stay up-to-date on current and new policies. But for your online business, it could be to remind you to review your analytics, for example.





5. Other activities





Files for marketing, list building, or ideas for follow-up messages could go here.


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