Something I try to do is keep my physical notecard files small. Besides the inbox file, urgent and important notecards are the only ones I keep in a physical file.
It's surprising how fast you can go through a thousand notecards. So effective filing is a must. And for me, that means maintaining digital archives. Something that, on its own, is a whole topic for discussion. Once again, I recommend GTD by David Allen if you'd like to dive deeper and avoid reinventing the wheel.
