If you are like me, the thought of having to organize your file cabinet absolutely filled me with dread. Our file cabinet was a mess of disorganized paperwork that was never really sorted through in the first place.
To make it worse it was the combination of two households who had very different and still not very organized filing systems. Basically, the file cabinet is where anything that was ‘this paper looks sort of important’ went to die.
It took a bit of work, but we were eventually able to conquer the file cabinet. Now before you do this, if you have a spouse or significant other who may want a say in how your organize your file cabinet, so make sure that you get them to sign off on it.
This is really important because otherwise you may end up in a situation where they decide they don’t like your new organizational system and it will all fall apart.
And yes, if your file cabinet is really bad, you will need a new organizational system. I’m going to assume that your file cabinet is as bad as mine was and you will need to organize your file cabinet as well as declutter it. If you just need to declutter it because you’ve got all the organization in place, then you are ahead of the game.
Before we go on, I am assuming that you have a file cabinet. However, this system will apply to whatever you use to store your paperwork. For a long time I kept all my items in hanging file boxes rather than a file cabinet because they cheaper and easier to move. Assume I am talking about any place that you store your paperwork when I say ‘organize your file cabinet’.
Items You Need to Organize Your File Cabinet
Before you get started, you will want to get the following items:
- Hanging file folders
- Double Pocketed folders
- A Stapler
- A Document Scanner
- A Paper Shredder
- A USB Thumb Drive
- A Recycle bin
None of these items are strictly required, but they sure make your life easier. A little up front investment can help a lot as you organize your file cabinet. Each of these items has a very specific purpose in our organizational system.
Hanging Folders and Pocketed Folders
In most cases when you organize your file cabinet, you will need both Hanging Folders and Pocketed Folders. Yes, it may seem redundant to have both, but there is a method to my madness.
At a minimum you will need hanging folders. Keep in mind that I am assuming that you are using a File Cabinet that takes hanging folders. If you are using something like a bankers box for storing your paperwork, pocketed folders may work better for your needs. Use whichever one makes the most sense.
If you live alone, you can probably get away with just the hanging folders or the pocketed folders. However, if you live with other people or have a family, just having hanging folders will cause your organizational system to quickly break down and you will end up having to organize your file cabinet all over again.
So why do I recommend both hanging folders and pocketed folders to organize your file cabinet? It seems redundant doesn’t it?
I found for each person in the family, we will have similar information. For example, my wife and each of my kids has medical records. So I use a hanging folder with the label ‘Medical Records’ on it, then for each member of the family I have an individual pocket folder for all of their medical records.
This means when I have to go look something up for one of my kids, I can just pull out their folder rather than go through everyone’s stuff looking for the file I need.
The Stapler
When you organize your file cabinet, you are going to need a stapler. The use is pretty self explanatory. If you want to ensure that certain documents always remain together, use a stapler.
Not paper clips, a stapler. The 2 seconds of stapling them together can ensure you save a ton of time later trying to piece together multiple pages that got out of order.
The Document Scanner
Get a document scanner to organize your file cabinet. Most people when I tell them this look at me like I’m crazy. The document scanner was a great investment.
While this piece of equipment is optional, the function it serves is not. So I highly recommend it. This was a critical tool for me.
With the document scanner, I was able to scan in documents that I didn’t necessarily need physical copies of but the information would be nice to have in a pinch.
For example, I had some old medical records that maybe would be useful someday, but I didn’t want to hold onto the physical copies. So I scanned them into my computer.
While I recommend a document scanner, if you don’t want to buy one and store it, which I totally understand, your phone has one built in. It’s more time consuming, but it works in a pinch!
If you do choose to buy one, the scanner doesn’t even have to be expensive. I got mine used from a University Surplus Store for cheap and it works great! That’s also where we got our file cabinet because why spend several hundred dollars on one when you can get one that has some scuffs on it for $15?
USB Thumb Drive
You are going to use the USB thumb drive in conjunction with your document scanner. I didn’t really want these documents I scanned in on my computer, so after I scanned them in, I just put them directly on the Thumb Drive and put the Thumb Drive in a safe location.
Document Shredder
The Document Shredder is one of the most essential tools when you organize your file cabinet. You should just have one of these because if you are like me, I am constantly getting mail that could be used for identity theft and for personal identifiable information. This is just good for a peace of mind so that when you dispose of files, they can’t easily be used to have your identity stolen.
Recycle Bin
When you organize your file cabinet, you are going to probably find a lot of stuff that you don’t need. Envelops and advertising that can just go straight into the recycle bin. Make sure you have a bin or bag handy for all of these items.
It’s time to Organize your File Cabinet!
Once you’ve got your supplies, it’s time to start organizing. Now I recommend setting up a staging area for this. I used a card table that I was able to setup in my office for a couple of days because I knew that it wasn’t going to be quick to get though everything.
Then as I pulled things out, I sorted everything into piles. Yours may differ from mine depending on what paperwork you have, but my general piles were as follows:
- Mortgage/Housing
- Medical
- Auto
- Retirement
- Household Expenses
- Taxes
- Pets
- Miscellaneous
When choosing your initial piles, try to keep it very broad. Otherwise you end up with a ton of overwhelming smaller piles of paper. If while sorting through things, you find that you have a lot of a certain category that doesn’t fit neatly into one of these broad categories, create a new pile for it.
As you are sorting through the paperwork, if you find stuff that you don’t need you can dispose of it immediately. This is where the paper shredder comes in handy. If it required shredding, I just shredded it on the spot.
Other items I just tossed directly into the recycle bin. For example, I didn’t really need a receipt for my Internet from 12 years ago when I lived in a different state. Keep in mind if you are getting rid of receipts, most receipt paper cannot be recycled.
The 2 Second Rule
During this initial sort, I made it a point to not spend more than 2 seconds on any piece of paperwork. If I wasn’t sure about it, I just sorted it into what looked like the most correct pile.
By limiting yourself to 2 seconds, you keep yourself moving and you don’t overthink it. Remember, you are trying to organize your file cabinet, not get stuck in sorting paralysis.
Noticing Trends
Be careful with that miscellaneous pile. That one can quickly get out of hand. If while you are sorting you start seeing a lot of a certain type of paperwork going into that miscellaneous pile, you should consider starting a new pile for that type of thing, even if you’ve already sorted out a bunch of those items already.
While you are doing your initial sorting, try to keep a mental note if you see any kind of trends and categorizations that you may want to separate out later. For example, each of my kids had a lot of medical bills and reports from all the various doctors appointments that you have to go through as infants.
Since each child has differing medical needs and results, I knew I was going to want to split those up into their own folders. Not because I necessarily had a lot of paperwork for them, but I knew that over time they were going to need their own folders. Trust me, your future self will thank you for this.
As a voice of experience, when I was a teenager I had to find some medical paperwork for a trip I was taking. My parents had put the medical paperwork for me and my siblings all in one single folder and it was a struggle to find what I needed.
By separating it out by kid, when I needed some specific information for one of my children last year, I just went to their folder and was easily able to locate it.
Organize Your Categories!
OK, you’ve got all your paperwork sorted out into piles. You now have a table of small stacks of paperwork that is at least sorted into broad categories. Now it’s time to sort through and organize those categories.
Sorting through your individual categories of paperwork and scanning them are going to be the two most time consuming parts of the process when you organize your file cabinet.
Subcategorization
Hopefully you were starting to notice trends in your paperwork when you were doing the initial sort. That will come in handy here. During this subcategorization you will want to sort each stack of papers into smaller piles depending on what it’s related to.
For example, when going through the medical paperwork, I put the medical records for each of my family members into their own piles. For our pets, I split it into two piles. One for each dog that we have. Then all the training, insurance, and medical paperwork went into the corresponding dog’s pile of papers.
I went through every pile of paper doing this. We had 18 years of stuff to go through, so it took several hours to do.
Declutter As You Go
A big part of the process to organize your file cabinet is to get rid of things you don’t need. As you sort through each of these piles, make a decision as to whether or not you really need physical copies of those items.
For example, all of my billing history for things like water, power, etc was available online. I could easily go onto the website for any of my utilities and get that data so there was no reason for me to keep physical copies of any of that paperwork.
It was just causing file cabinet clutter. Other things I found in there were owners manuals for appliances and electronics. All things that are easily found online.
Similarly, I can get bank statements going as far back as I needed from my bank’s website. There was no need to keep any of that paperwork either. Since anything that had personally identifiable information and I didn’t need I shredded.
Scan what you need
Some of the paperwork I came across and I realized that it may be helpful to have at some point but I really didn’t need the physical paperwork. For example, there was paperwork from the sale of our previous home.
We probably didn’t need it but since this information isn’t easily obtained online I opted to scan this data onto my thumb drive using the document scanner. Once that was done, I was able to shred that paperwork and free up a ton of space in the file cabinet.
Other things that I did similar things to were tax documents. I had over a decade of tax documents. For the record, according to the IRS website, you only need to keep 3 years of tax documents except under special circumstances in which you need to retain 7 years of tax documents. So I kept 3 years, scanned in years 4-7, and shredded the rest.
Extraneous Paper
While I was doing this second round of sorting, I noticed we had a lot of extraneous paper in with the important items. The number one cause was items in envelopes.
Folded items in envelopes take up more room and are often stuffed with other paperwork you don’t need. If you need to keep the physical paperwork, take it out of the envelopes and dispose of the excess paperwork that comes with it.
Only keep the items that are actually needed. Our insurance provider was notorious for having 2-3 pages in every envelope with ‘terms and conditions’ and ‘this page intentionally left blank’ on it.
Neither of those things are useful to hold onto and you’ll find that it will slim down the amount of stuff in your file cabinet.
When you are pulling this paperwork you want to keep out of the envelopes, if you have multiple pages you should staple them together. As I mentioned earlier, this can save you a lot of time later on.
If you are against staples, use paper clips, but keep in mind those generally take up more room in the file cabinet.
Labeling Folders
One key when you organize your file cabinet is to ensure you have good labels. At this point you should have everything sorted, scanned, and disposed of and you are ready to put thing in their proper home.
Put each of the subcategories into their own pocketed folder. Then put those pocketed folders into a hanging folder. This ensures that like items like medical records are grouped together and easy to find.
I put the broad category I mentioned earlier on each of the hanging folders. So I had a medical folder, I had a retirement folder, I had a pets folder.
For the pocketed folders, I used a naming scheme like this:
- Medical – Child 1
- Medical – Child 2.
- Taxes – My Name – Year.
- Taxes – Wife’s Name – Year
- Taxes – Joint Filing – Year
When all was said and done, I had maybe a quarter of the original amount of items in my file cabinet and everything was much easier to find.
Final Thoughts
When you organize your file cabinet, you are likely to come across a few gotchas. First, forms for mortgages are unreasonably big. To get around this I ended up dedicating an entire drawer to just mortgage information. It’s not efficient, but with all that space freed up it made sense.
Second, when you organize your file cabinet, don’t put things in that don’t belong in there. For example, I found a jewelry box in our file cabinet and some tools. Only put paperwork in there. Everything else belongs in a proper home.
Finally be mindful of what you put in there. Before you file things in there, ask yourself if you really need it. If you do, can you scan it and keep it on the thumb drive? With maintenance, your file cabinet will remain organized.
