Everyone hates filing, yet everyone wants an organized office, right?
Right, I’m not typical because I don’t really hate filing. In fact, when it makes my searches shorter and easier, I like it. You will too once you get organized and start your home or business office the right way. The right way helps most of us not get lost in the paperwork shuffle when it comes time to find that important document we know we keep. A few simple tips on storing, setting up, sharing, and maintaining your new filling system can make the job easier than you feared.
Store
First, you need to determine where you will store your files. Will they be on an easily accessible desk or in a credenza drawer? If you don’t have drawers available, should you use a file box on a shelf or a mobile file cart? If there are a lot of files, are they more suitable for a filing cabinet? If you use a cabinet, should you put the files in your office for quick access or store them somewhere else? Once you make this decision and have the storage location configured, you will move on to developing the file system.
Set up
When setting up a filing system, keep it simple so you and others don’t fear maintenance. Use hanging files or selected drawers for main categories. Then place the folders in the hanging file or drawer for subcategories. When developing a file system, determine how many main categories you will need for files. For most file systems, this can be limited to between six and ten main categories. Then create subcategories within the main categories, if necessary. Main file or main categories in order of use most to least using hanging files with marked tabs. Create subcategories within the main one such as alphabetic, date, or numeric to make it easier to find folders. For example, reporting financial data makes more sense by date, since you file taxes by year and pay bills by month. The client information file would be alphabetized by client name. Archive periodic research and clippings by topic category rather than source name for fast retrieval. Whichever filing system you use, always bring the most recent documents to the front of the folder, as you are normally looking for the most recent version of information.
Share
If you use a shared filing system, include a typed information sheet or index card on the outside of the file location so others can understand the filing system. For files used by multiple people or that contain multiple folders, create bookmarks for the location of the file when it is deleted. These bookmarks can be empty folders labeled “Out”. Using a bookmark makes it easy to see that a folder is missing, as well as where to put it back to reduce filing time. If you want to further protect files and ensure they are returned, you can also have a check-in/out log of who took what file and when it was returned.
Hold
Regular maintenance includes both regular archiving and keeping files compact and up-to-date by scheduling regular times to purge old or no longer relevant data files. Try to file a document as soon as you are done with it. If files aren’t conveniently located for instant archiving, try to archive them every day at the same time, whenever possible. If there isn’t much to file, choose a particular day of the week to file everything. For daily or weekly archiving, have a waiting place for archive items until archiving time. Ongoing file maintenance includes every time a file folder is opened, and if it contains multiple sheets, quickly check to see if you can throw any outdated material into a slim file. If there is no configuration management or document control requirement to maintain old versions, be sure to maintain only the most recent version when submitting reviews or reports.
Hopefully these simple tips will make it easier for you to set up and maintain a manageable filing system. Remember, keep it simple so everyone who uses the system can quickly and easily find what they need or save documents. Perhaps now you, too, will discover that archiving is a simple necessity and not something to be feared.