by Elaine Arthur

Created on: March 16, 2010

Recently, I had occasion to train a student who was interning at our office.  The routine started out with the simplest of tasks, in the hope that by the end of the internship, she’d have mastered numerous skills.  Indeed, she caught on fast and we had her name and number on file to call anytime we needed help and she was available during holiday and vacation time.  It was a mutually good arrangement.

I remember Grace’s first week with us.  Of all the many challenges in our office (dealing with multilingual customers, figuring out how to handle the temperamental copy machine, invoicing, credit card processing, and dispatching), the one thing that seemed to stymie her was the filing.  I suspect this simply meant she was cut out for bigger and better things in life, but since our office processed a lot of paperwork, it was inconceivable that anyone could spend time in our office and not get to know the file system.

It wasn’t even our filing system that was the problem, since all we did was file customer invoices alphabetically by customer.  Grace’s problem was the most basic technique that lay at the bottom:  Putting things into alphabetical order. 

Now, for the average reader, this will sound silly, because if you graduated from first grade, you know your ABC’s.  But when confronted with a mountain of unsorted invoices, it’s daunting to figure out exactly how to start.  We were able to provide Grace with the one thing she needed to get going:  Lots of desk space to spread her work out on.

After this, I gave her some simple tips on alphabetizing, so as to speed the job and make it less of a headache.  There are 21 steps, but they make it easier than trying to pick out all the A's, then the B's, etc., which is how most neophytes will try to tackle it.

1.  Make 2 piles:

-A-M

-N-Z

2.  Put aside N-Z

3.  Divide A-M in two:

-A-G

-H-M

4.  Put aside H-M

5.  Divide A-G in two:

-A-D

-E-G

6.  Put aside E-G.

7.Divide A-D in two:

-A-B

-C-D

8.  Divide A-B into two:

-A

-B

9.  Take A and sort whichever way your office does it (we like oldest invoices in back, newest in front), then file accordingly.

10.  Repeat Step 9 for the B’s

11.  Repeat Step 8 for the C-D pile

12.  Repeat Step 9 for the C’s and D’s.

13.  Repeat Step 8 for the E-F-G pile

14.  Repeat Step 9 for E, F, and G.

15.  Divide H-M pile:

-H-J

-K-M

16.  Repeat steps 8 and 9 for the H, I, and J’s and then for the K’s, L’s and M’s.

17.  Divide N-Z:

-N-S

-T-Z

18.  Divide N-S:

-N-P

-Q-S

19.  Repeat steps 8 and 9 for N,O and P, then for Q,R, and S.

20.  Divide the T-Z’s:

-T-V

-W-Z

21.  Repeat Steps 8 and 9 for T, U, and V, then for W, X, Y, Z.

 And that’s it – you’re done.

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