Bonjour. This is Cyril from Work Smarter: Live Better. Today I would like to talk about X.
Don’t get too excited. It’s not what you’re thinking, X is just a productivity tool.
Actually, you should get excited. This tool, called X1, is very exciting.
When I work with leadership teams, I take them through a three to four months journey to challenge and change their work habits. The first habit we discuss is called Declutter Your Space. We work on decluttering their files. 15 years ago, the focus was mainly on hard files. Nowadays it is much more on soft files and email folders.
An interesting survey on file management found that the average person spends 6 weeks per year looking for information they already have.
6 weeks per year…
I don’t care what your filing system looks like. But you shouldn’t be wasting time looking for information you already have.
Some people try to create a ‘great’ filing system with folders and sub folders and sub sub folders. Some give up and end up with a big mess of files not sorted.
This is where X1 comes to the rescue. It is a simple index and search software you can download on x1.com. It will index all your documents whether Excel, Word, PDF, even all your emails. All you have to do is type a few search words and X1 will find it very quickly.
X1 is not cheap, I think around 80$. But I think it is if it saves you a lot of time. Now I just would like to make it clear that I do not have any link with the company X1. I am not getting paid to write this or get any commission back. I simply like the tool, my clients like it, and I thought you might to.
So, this is my tip for this week: don’t waste time searching for documents you already have. File everything in one folder and use a search tool to find very quickly anything you need.
A bientôt,
Cyril
