Today's subject is documents. An area that is the scourge of most individuals but has great opportunity for time management improvement.
Documentation
Even in today's technological environment documentation for projects seems to rise at a speed that is disproportional to the increase in work. It can take up a substantial portion of an individual's time. Paperwork appears to be generated from many origins too numerous to trouble detailing any here.
The motivating forces for paperwork are also several but might consist of:
Legal requirements, regulatory needs, health and safety needs, communication and recording data.
The increase in documents may easily detract from managing your work or having any time to think and plan. Setting documents to the side to face later is just delaying the inescapable.
How long do you retain documents?
There are those that use postponing tactics. An inbound report ends up in a pile of other reports. One day you will get around to it because you are so tied up. You will undoubtedly deal with this document if its urgency becomes great-- so you leave it. The process then continues along normal lines.
1 week: Other items appear before you, so the document might hang around a little longer. Nobody has called for the data so far so it begins to get concealed in the heap.
2 weeks: Still nobody has called for the information. Its importance has been downgraded. You will definitely deal with it as soon as you clear away the stockpile.
4 weeks: Maybe somebody questions as to the standing of the report but says, 'if you haven't managed to do anything then, don't worry, the situation has changed'. If no one has asked about the report following one month it is clearly not applicable and you consider destroying it-- but you retain it just in case.
6 months: You find the report; have completely forgotten what it was about and shred it.
The above illustration may be familar but simply applies to reports that need some sort of activity and not for anything that needs long term filing, such as standard operation procedures (SOPs) or reports. These would have protocols in position to keep them for particular period of times, for instance 1, 5 or 10 years.
Notice that, though stored reports might be electronically reproduced, so that ultimately the originals can be destroyed, the originals of some reports may always need holding for a particular period. This is because only the original may be valid as it will indicate any modifications and additionally includes original signatures.
What you need is a system that matches your objective and allows you to efficiently deal with reports in a prompt way.
Archived documents will have a holding duration identified in a policy. This may be anything from 1 to 10 or more years. This is common practice for documentation for projects. The time period will normally be driven by regulatory and legal needs but may also support internal requirements to retain information so that expertise is not lost.
----------------------------------------------------
We create simple, jargon free, strategies covering a wide breadth for business and personal use. If you need more guidance don't overlook Project management at http://www.project-management-basics.com, or take a look at our product store at http://www.marchltd.co.uk
EasyPublish this article: http://submityourarticle.com/articles/easypublish.php?art_id=279076
No comments:
Post a Comment