Reorganized cabinet success

[Anonymous]

I've totally reorganized my file cabinet last week. I used to have colored hanging folders (yellow-financial, red-home, green-friends & family, blue-computer related) with tabs and folders in them. For example :

[Car]
-Purchase-
-Cleaning-

[Work]
-Timesheets-
-Contract-
-Insurance-
-Career-

[Tax]
-1999-
-2000-
-2001-

I've decided to take the plunge and go for A-Z filing as well as dumping the hanging files.

I use a computer with Microsoft Word to print labels on a laser printer. I considered buying a Brother labeler a lot, but in the end, I found it cheaper to just slide old narrow sheets of labels I had lying around, in my laser printer. I've chosen to use a two-level naming system. Every label has two words to identify it :

Car - cleaning
Car - purchase
Tax - 1999
Tax - 2000
Tax - 2001
Tax - 2002
Work - career
Work - contracts
Work - insurance
Work - timesheet

To me, this is an entertaining process! I just love to decide on label names and type them out in the word processor until I have a full sheet of labels. Then, I go the printer to feed it a sheet (12 labels). Slam those labels on the folders!

To find things, I maintain a single index page in Word. I've considered using additional software, but in the end, don't we all want things to be simpler? Nothing like paper : I look at my index page to file things when in doubt, and update it as needed. 98% of the time, I naturally browse the files and find what I want.

The only hard part of using this system is deciding WHAT YOU WANT on your labels (Ex. : do I want Cellphone-manual or, Electronics-Cellphone?). Even then, if I change my mind about a label, I just dump the used folder in the paper recycling-bin and grab a new one; I like a clean system so I don't put new labels over older labels.

My two cents!

Dave

 

[taxgeek]

Congratulations!

Congratulations on your newly organized files, Dave! I have one caution though, if you are getting rid of your hanging files: Make sure you have very sturdy file drawers. I thought I had nice sturdy drawers, but it turns out that the floors of the drawers were not designed to have weight on them, and they bowed and popped out of their grooves. Turns out the drawers were only designed to hold the weight of the files if it was on the hanger bars. :x So anyway, just check your drawer bottom unless you have the big metal files. Even the bottom of my wooden file drawers at work broke!

Susan