You've got an essay due tomorrow and another the day after that. You've taken copious notes for both and you're ready to create two winning papers. You just have to sort through the notes -- which are scattered all over your room with various bills, junk mail and other papers.

An hour later, you're still sorting. Inside, you're cursing yourself for wasting time. And you're still not entirely sure which notes go with which essay. To make matters worse, you've discovered a couple of overdue bills mixed in with your notes.

Sound familiar? If you're struggling with information organization, you're not alone. The good news is that a few simple strategies can help you get on top of things.

Assessment
Self-assessment is the first step in getting organized. Start by asking yourself if you're a "pile" person or a "stuff" person. Do you heap all incoming papers in a pile on your desk with the belief that you'll get to it later? Do you keep every slip of paper and "stuff" that comes in, thinking that you'll need it 10 minutes after you toss it?

After you've taken a hard look at yourself, look at how you currently handle papers. What do you do with papers that come in? Assessing your current system is the key to building your next system. Examine yourself and your job to find out what type of organization is needed to get the job done. Then marry the two into a system that is right for you.

Reduce the Clutter
A vital skill for getting organized is the ability to make decisions. A key decision is what to do with the information we are bombarded with every day. That information can be broken down into things we may not need, things we care about and things we need right now. The first step is to throw things away.

Barbara Hemphill is a professional organizer. She says that about 40 percent of the paper in your In basket can go straight into the trash. "You don't read it, don't care, don't need it. Then about 40 percent needs to be filed. That leaves 20 percent on top of the desk. That's a significant difference for most people."

Some possible categories include phone calls, calls waiting to be returned, computer entry, possible purchases, and discussion files -- a series of files and projects of what relates to whom. The highest number of projects one person can handle on their desk is 10, says Hemphill. "More than 10 is just playing games with yourself."

Project
One related skill is projection. When will you need this bit of information -- tomorrow, next week, the 13th of December? The skill of projecting when you will need this information is just as important as determining whether you need the information at all.

A tickler file -- also called a future file -- is an important tool for organizing future information. Hemphill recommends the type that includes each month of the year and days 1 through 31. When a paper comes in that will be needed at a future date, such as a reminder about a seminar or business luncheon, it is filed into the month or day of the event. Remember, filing things in a tickler file won't help if you don't use it. Make sure you go through the daily sections of the current month every day.

Getting the clutter off your desk is vital to being organized. But where you put the information is also important. Filing cabinets have long been a common tool in home and business offices. Hemphill suggests an index card in the front of the file drawer listing all of the files in that drawer. One of the advantages is that you eliminate dual files.

Listing which files you have and what is in them is the purpose of the index. Helping you locate a file, without having to look at each one, is a bonus.

Start Using a System

Hemphill suggests the following as a step-by-step organizational system: