Files: 26 divided by 4, sorta?

[Mike Ferguson]

Okay, my reference files, right behind me, four drawers, swivel and slight roll: Drawer #1 A-F. Drawer #2 G-L. Drawer #3 M-R. Drawer #4 S-Z.

But Drawer #1 is packed tight and needs a purge while 2 and 3 are still roomy. Drawer #4 is catching up to #1 quickly. Is this just the way my files happen to fill, or "statistically," is there a better way to split the alphabet between the four drawers for more balance? Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Filing

Hi Mike,

Feel free to move your files around as needed. There's nothing saying there needs to be as many letters in the first drawer as the last.

We recommend labeling the outside of the drawer, for example (A-C), (D-M), (N-P) (Q-Z)... and you'll know where to find everything...

Make sense?

Jodi

 

[Anonymous]

A dictionary provides some info...

Hi Mike - Your post made me curious, so I picked up my desktop dictionary and divided it into quarters. Although your files won't use ALL the words in the English language, that might give a rough idea of how many words begin with each range of letters. This particular dictionary is about 1400 pages. The first quarter (pages 1 - 350) holds letters A through the middle of D. The next quarter (up to page 700) holds the rest of D though L. The third quarter (through page 1050) holds M-Sc. The rest of the dictionary holds the rest of S through Z. If I had 4 drawers, I'd consider labeling them A-D, E-L, M-Sc, and Se-Z.

 

[TesTeq]

Flexible division.

I think Guest's suggestion is the most thought-out starting point I could imagine. But if you have empty drawers any system is good.
I would begin with filling up one drawer, than split the contents and use two drawers and if one of them fills up split everything into three even parts and so on. During such reorganization you MUST change drawer labels as Jodi suggested.
TesTeq

 

[Mike Ferguson]

Thanks. Reading your posts, I realized that 1) the division should be based on what is actually happening in my files and, 2) I should remain flexible and feel free to rearrange as needed. Using my files as they are now as a sample group, I did my own little bit of research and my files are now divided A-C (24%), D-O (23%), Q-S (24%), T-Z (13%). A low drawer occurs no matter how I slice it because of where the heavy users fall. Okay, enough of that. On to more important things. But I like the better balance.

 

[spring]

A pessimist sees the drawer half-full; an optimist sees the drawer half-empty.

A half-empty drawer is good for storing blank file folders and other miscellaneous things you want to keep handy. For example, I keep my boxes of blank checks at the back of my emptiest drawer.