Simple steps for creating and maintaining and easy to use and maintain filing system

 5 Simple Steps to Organize Paperwork & Filing

1.  Go through your existing file folders and purge old, obsolete files and documents. Shred items with personal information.  

2.  Go through the piles on your surfaces and sort them into 2 piles:

• active files (I recommend these stepped file holders for active files) - these are the papers related to your active projects (receipts, ideas, resources, etc.).
• papers that need to be filed (user manuals, receipts, insurance documents, tax documents, papers that you are required to retain, etc.).

3.  Set up your stepped file holder with your current projects, create a file for each project and put the appropriate papers into each folder.

4.  Further sort your papers that need to be filed, sort into the appropriate categories utilizing your existing filing system or if you don’t have one now, you will need to create categories for each diffent group of papers.  Sort the papers into their respective folders.

• Your filing container will be determined by your space and the volume of papers you need to file
• if you like the additional structure, utilize different colored file folders to group different categories together (for example, insurance folders of one color, pets, cars, etc.)
• you can put multiple folders related to a category inside a hanging file or just put all papers directly in the hanging folder without individual folders.
• labeling your folders will help you to find them once they are filed...there are many options for labeling, the key thing is that the labels are clearly visible to you when you are looking for a particular paper.

5.  Schedule time for maintenance - file incoming papers on a weekly basis, plan a yearly maintenance purge where you clear out papers you no longer need to keep your filing system manageable.