Administrative clutter (part 3): filing strategies

In part 2, I have talked about a simple system to sort through your paperwork clutter quickly. And if all is well, you should now be left with only things that you want/need to keep, and items you have to deal with.

Before you start filing: Unpaid bills, etc. are still actionable items and should go into the IN tray! FILING is about putting away non-actionable papers, so these remaining piles should only contain papers that you have dealt with already.

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The actual filing process: the “file”, “new” and “one-off” piles.

This is all about making sure you keep what you need – nothing more, nothing less – and file it so you can easily retrieve it when you need it. This may sound like a simple task to achieve, but you’d be surprised how much can and does go wrong at this level. So, how to deal with those three piles, then?

The “file” pile.

Papers have ended up in this pile, because you already have a place to file those in. In general, that could be a hanging file, a paper folder, a specific binder, or a section in a binder, etc. – as long as there is a clear separation of that particular kind of document from others that are clearly separate (e.g., all the phone bills, all the medical bills, all school-related information, etc.). When filing papers, it is important to keep in mind the reason why you are filing papers in the first place: you might need them in the future and when that time comes, you want to be able to find them at short notice.

If you only have one binder full of papers you keep, this might be easy to achieve, but what if you have a whole shelf full of binders, each full of assorted papers? In that case, it pays to take a moment and organise the content of those binders in a way that groups associated items together (e.g. all suppliers together, all school stuff together, all tax stuff together, etc.).

When you start dealing with the “file” pile, the first order of the day is to take the whole pile and separate things out by type (and supplier): e.g., put all phone bills (separated by phone companies if there are several), medical bills (different hospitals or doctors), school-related information on separate piles. Why? So you can file all of them in one go rather than having to locate and sort the same kind of document several times. You wouldn’t believe how much time you can save this way! If you end up getting confused which pile is which, by all means use sticky notes or pieces of paper as indications. This is especially helpful if you are clearing a backlog of filing. Once you have sorted things, it’s time to actually file them.

Tip: if you are using binders that require hole-punching of papers, punch all documents now. Again, this will save a lot of time and effort along the line.

• Pick a filing pile and locate the existing filed papers in your filing system.
• Sort the new papers by date so that the most recent on is on top. That way, you’ll find the most recent information first when you look for it.
• Look at the whole section of documents and decide if you need to keep all of them: most of these sections will start with some kind of contract or agreement, followed by a series of bills or updates.
• Remove all papers you have no need of keeping and recycle them.
  Hint: once a bill is paid, it’s usually sufficient to keep the last two or three for reference, anything older tends to be irrelevant, unless there are irregularities you have to deal with. This simple step will drastically reduce the amount of paper you keep and makes it much easier to locate the bits you actually have to find.
• Repeat with the next filing pile.

At the end of this filing exercise your “file” pile will be taken care of and you might have some papers in the “recycle” pile again.

The “new” pile.

This pile is a variation on the “file” pile, really: the only difference is that you have no specific place to file those yet. Since the new pile contains papers that you expect to have repeat additions (e.g. a new contract with a new supplier who will send monthly bills), you’ll want to create a new section in your existing filing system.

• Pick a “new” pile and locate a similar item (e.g. existing phone suppliers for new phone contracts, etc.) in your existing filing system.
• Add a new section right beside/before/after that similar item.
• Look at the whole section of documents and decide if you need to keep all of them.
• Take care to remove duplicate information. It’s a common issue when you first file a new type of documents to find that you have the same marketing information multiple times, or that you have accumulated three or four (paid) bills, some of which you already don’t need to keep any more.
• Remove all papers you have no need of keeping and recycle them.
• Repeat with the next filing pile.

It is likely that you will have accumulated more papers in your “recycle” pile once again!

The “one-off” pile.

This is the most tricky bit of filing. Not only is it always difficult to decide if you actually need to keep these papers, but also it’s hard to decide on a spot where you’ll find them again if you really need them. Luckily, if you have done your work properly before, the “one-off” pile is usually relatively small.

I normally opt for the following solution:

• I keep a file labelled “just in case” or similar, and file my one-offs in there.
• Write a short description of each of the documents on a list at the front of the file.
• Add the documents to the file in the same order.
• (If you want to separate them out a little, you could add riders on the side.)
• When your list has reached the end of the page, start a new “just in case” file.
• (If that is the case, you may want to add numbers (“just in case 1”, etc.) to indicate you have more than one of them.)

This setup allows me to quickly scan for documents without having to open the folder at all, and creating new folders once the list is full keeps those folders from becoming too large to handle easily.
Since this is a slightly more volatile file to keep, it pays to occasionally scan it for stuff you definitely have no more need of keeping. Be ruthless: it’s a one-off folder after all. It’s likely you’ll never need to refer to some of the stuff in here! If you take anything out and recycle, make sure to remove the reference from the list as well.

Note: This is my personal take on filing. I’m sure you’ll find some things that work for you (and some that won’t!), but you can take this as a starting point to elaborate with your own ideas and needs.

The fourth and last part of this series will deal with maintenance of this filing system and making sure that nothing is left unresolved.

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may find these other articles interesting:

• Administrative clutter (part 4): a tale of two trays
  
• The value of things
  
• Children rooms: toy story