Ladies, pick a special spot in your purse to keep cards. Maybe that little zipper compartment that no one knows what to do with. Or pick up a little change purse. Just pick some place specific. Men, create a special spot in your wallet or pick a pocket. Every time you get a card or phone number, whether you are in the grocery store or out networking, it goes in the "card spot". This starts the process and eliminates, "Now where did I put that card?" syndrome.

#2 From one place to another
Now I don't know about you, but when I come home from a dinner meeting at 11pm I don't feel like entering contacts into a database. But you don't want to forget about the cards hanging out in your "card spot". You also don't want to create a pile of mystery cards.

Find a box or a pretty bowl to keep on your desk. This is your holding spot. Take your cards from your card spot, bundle them together and put them into your holding spot until you are ready to enter them into your database.

Hint: You can store phone messages, sticky notes with hand written phone numbers and other notes in your holding spot to make sure those numbers also get into your database.

#3 Enter into your database
Now if a card is in your holding spot that means it has not been entered into the database. So get typing. Even if there is a day or two between the actual meeting and you entering the info into your database, you have just made it really easy for you to find a phone number. If it's not in your database, it's either in your purse spot or in your holding spot. How easy is that? No more tearing the office apart. Don't forget to back up your database. You wouldn't want to loose all that hard work.