Five Records Habits Worth Starting This Year

Most records problems are not caused by the wrong system. They are caused by small things left for later: an email not filed, a call not noted, a deadline kept in someone's head. Here are five habits that each take a few minutes and prevent most of the reconstruction work that turns up in a dispute, an audit or a handover. Pick one for January, add another each month.

1. Every matter gets a record on day one

The moment something becomes a matter, whether a new client, a new tenancy, a complaint or an investigation, open a record for it. Not when the paperwork arrives; when it starts. The first email, the first call and the first document then have somewhere to go, and nothing lives in a "to file" folder for three weeks.

In Herarx that means creating the case from its template, so it starts with the right fields, contact roles and tasks. If the matter started with an email, New case from this email in Mail creates the case pre-filled from it.

2. File email the day it arrives

Email filed later is email filed never. Make it part of reading: if a message concerns a matter, it goes to that matter before you close it. With Mail connected, Add to case puts the email and its attachments on the case, and email you send from a case is filed automatically. After sending any email, Mail offers to file it too. Ten seconds per message, and the case holds the whole conversation.

3. Write the note before the next call

After a call, a meeting or a site visit, write three lines before doing anything else: who, what was said, what happens next. Put it on the matter, as a comment on the case. A note written five minutes later is evidence; a note written five days later is a reconstruction. If something was agreed, send a one-line confirming email and file that as well.

4. Every promise becomes a dated task

"I will get back to you by Friday" is a deadline. Turn it into a task with a due date and an owner on the case, so it shows on the calendar and on the home board rather than in your memory. If you repeat the same follow-ups on every matter, put them in the template, or set up a rule to create them; five automations worth setting up has examples.

5. Close properly, with a review date

When a matter ends, close it deliberately: set the status to Completed, check the files are complete, remove access that is no longer needed, and note when the record should be reviewed for disposal. Closed matters that are never reviewed become the ten-year-old files nobody dares delete. How long to keep a closed case covers how to set the date. When you do delete, deleted cases go to Trash for 30 days first, so a mistake can be undone.

A weekly ten minutes to keep it honest

Once a week, look at three things: tasks overdue, matters with no activity for a month, and anything still sitting in a "to sort" pile. Fix or reassign each. That short review is what keeps the other five habits alive. If you are starting from a backlog, begin with the year-end records clean-up checklist and then let these habits keep it from coming back.