Paper. . . . It’s everywhere. Although we are living in a digital world, when you are doing any type of renovation or remodel, regardless of size, you will be bombarded with paper.

You’ll have two options on how to deal with the avalanche. One is to do nothing special, just let it come in and overwhelm you. The plan here is to hope for the best. The other is to diligently document and file.

In an analog world, a good binder, a decent hole punch, and stapler are your main weapons. Divider tabs and highlighters are another level althogether. If you want to ascend to the guru level you will need those little ‘Sign Here’, ‘Approve’, ‘Review’ sticky tabs.

If you are digitally inclined, you could scan the paper and get it onto your filing system. Once scanned, you can tag the file with keywords to assist in the retrieval of the information when required.

That’s really what the entire documention thing is all about. The number of decisions required in a typical renovation project are staggering. You need a way to keep a record of not only the decision, but also how you arrived at it.

What’s the toughest thing about documention? It’s not what you think. It the old 80-20 rule. Eighty percent of all the stuff you file, you will never need. The problem is that you don’t know which decision falls into which pile.

That means you’re stuck doing as much filing as you can.

- Frank Soellig