Don't be a beaver! Time, paper and activity keep flowing. You must direct and divert that flow, not damn it up at your desk.
Sometimes people feel like they've got a logjam on their desks. Project A floats in and rests against the pile already on the desk. Then Pile B is dumped in behind it and wedges itself in at an angle to the original pile. As the current narrows through the remaining gap, Project C and Pile D surf in and plug it up. Now you have a logjam.
If you were a beaver, you'd be thrilled. But you're a water flow manager. Your job is to keep those logs moving along down the stream. Hint: The answer is not a bigger desk; that only creates a bigger damn.
The answer depends on why each log is there. If you don't know the answer, you can't direct the flow. The main questions to ask are “why do I have this?” and (if there's a good reason to have it) “what's the next action?” If there's no good reason, make sawdust out of it.
Of course, you will have projects that can't be sent downstream right away, but those ongoing projects should not be mixed in with the incoming logs. Keep the flow going by identifying new logs as your work to do, information to be filed, and reading. The rest should be sent on to someone else or tossed out.
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