The abbreviation OHIO means “Only Handle It Once”. The OHIO method helps anyone to arrange his or her documents, papers, computer files, bills and other things like that in the shortest period of time possible. The best solution, of course, is to prevent quick accumulation of useless information on the first place. However, at times we aren’t concerned about the consequences of our actions. We just need to write down a number or an address on a paper, which is within our grasp.

Huge stacks of unsorted data can scare you. It’s a good idea to store jottings that may be useful in the future. If a piece of information can’t be retrieved on demand in a reasonable amount of time, it has no practical value. Imagine a dictionary where the words are printed in non-alphabetical order. Would you like to use such a book? It is still possible to find your chosen word, but is it convenient and time-saving?

Today I have a clear and simple way of dealing with papers in my drawers and files on my computer. It wasn’t always the case. I had a flash drive with a storage capacity of 28,5 Gb. Although I used only a tiny fraction of documents, I had a gigabyte or two of free space available. The very essential files were scattered across the folders and everything seemed to me very important to be got rid of.

Several times I was ready to make order and sort things out. Every time I experienced a disappointing setback. It was a painstaking, monotonous, and highly unpleasant task. At the beginning I eliminated the papers that were obviously obsolete. It was a rare category. Usually papers contained unsorted lines of words that had been put randomly on it. Those papers were placed aside only to grab my attention once more later.

One day I was driving a car. I listened to an audiobook and the author explained the OHIO method. He claimed it would help anybody to finally combat mayhem. The system was very simple. You sit at your desk with a pile of papers is lying in front of you. The moment a paper is in your hands there are only three actions. The first option is to crumple it and throw it into a bin. The second thing you can do is to transfer the paper into a specific category or to extract the important information out of it before it goes to the bin. In the third case, you put a paper into a specific folder, which is labeled as “See Three Months Later”. If you live without that folder more than 90 days after it has been filled – you shred it.

I was skeptical about the method. I thought it would not be applicable in my case. Then I remembered that four years before my hard drive had malfunctioned. As a result, I had lost approximately 500 Gb of data. Back then, I had thought my life would be over. In reality, nothing bad happened.

There were files and papers I hadn’t seen for years. Were they critical after all?

Be ready to pay $1 for charity for each paper in the “See Three Month Later” folder. This simple trick will boost your decisiveness on the next level. The same strategy applies to computer files as well.