Archive for ‘Paper Organizing’ Category

Posted on: February 12th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 18 Comments

Did you know that in addition to February 14th being Valentine’s Day, it’s also International Book Giving Day and Library Lovers’ Day? As someone who’d much rather receive a bouquet of books than flowers, this makes sense to Paper Doll. And February 20th is Clean Out Your Bookcase Day!

The literary and the romantic will always be tied together. I mean, watching or hearing someone declare their love is nice, but being able to read (and reread) the declaration more than two hundred years later? Jane Austen knew what she was doing when she had Persuasion‘s Captain Wentworth’s write this to Anne Elliot. 

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant…

N/A

Reading can be romantic. But let’s face it, there’s nothing romantic about organizing books.

Or is there?

What could be more romantic than your sweetheart making sure you don’t fall and break your neck tripping over their pile of unread books? What could be a finer proof of your love than moving your books off of the kitchen counter so your darling can actually make lunch?

Other than commingling finances, what could require more love and trust than combining your personal libraries?

ORGANIZE YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY FIRST

Organizing, downsizing, and protecting your personal library (and your reading time) involves a great deal of thought and planning, as I’ve written before in various posts over 17 years, including:

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. For example, you could read what Martha Stewart and her favorite peeps have to say about How to Organize Books in a Way That Works for You

Conversely, you could review what the Washington Post says in How to Organize Your Books, According to People with Thousands of Them

And, of course, even though I’m a professional organizer, I’m a reader first, and I know that there’s much more to a personal library that just arranging books. To that end, I invite everyone to read Freya Howarth’s How to Nurture a Personal Library.

If your own book collection is sprawling, full of duplicates and titles you’ll never read again (or read at all), outdated college textbooks, or other book clutter (did you gasp at “book clutter”?), you can find ways to hide your biblio-addiction in your own, private space.

That works for hermits. However you choose to organize your own books, organizing books when you live with your significant other adds multiple layers of complexity.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BLENDING PERSONAL LIBRARIES

First, you have to decide whether you’re going to try to blend your books, or keep them separate. Then you have to embrace the difficult work of culling your collections. (If you came to blows trying to figure out whose air fryer or toaster oven you’d use, that was mere child’s play.)

When friends ask me if they should blend book collections with their sweethearts, I say, “Don’t. Books are intimate. Mixing your books is like mixing your toothbrushes. Blech!”

When clients ask me the same question, I am more sanguine, or at least more practical.

When friends ask me if they should blend book collections with their sweethearts, I say, 'Don't. Books are intimate. Mixing your books is like mixing your toothbrushes. Blech!' When clients ask me the same question, I am more… Click To Tweet

Space Invaders — Introducing One Library to Another

We love our book collections. Our personal libraries say something about who we were, are, and hope to be. Exposing our private collections may be awkward or embarrassing, less like when your parents share “baby on the bearskin rug” photos and more like when they show photos of you, all braces-and-bad-perm, at the junior prom.

So, let’s imagine that you and your beloved have just decided to cohabit.

  • Are they moving into your space?

How will you keep from feeling like your terrain is being invaded? If you’ve previously shared an apartment with a friend or just a sub-letting housemate, it’s probably been very clear whose space belongs to whom. Perhaps the division was congenial and you easily divided everything equally; perhaps not.

Will you resent reducing the space available for your carefully curated collection?

It’s one thing to give up space in your closet, bathroom cabinet, or even your underwear drawer, but if you guard your bookshelves fiercely (as most avid readers do), how will you welcome your sweetheart and fellow reader into your space?

  • Are you moving into their space?

Any time two people move in together where one has already been residing, there’s an implicit turf war. How will you feel at home in a home without adequate and fairly representative space for your books, which you may love as much as someone else loves their Labradoodle! You don’t want to feel like an invader, but neither do you want to feel like a guest in what should become your new home.

Divide Without Conquering — How to Share a Space When Both of You Have Custody of Books

Maybe you’re moving together to a new home and get to start fresh. Or, it’s possible you’ve been living together for a while. Whether the two of your are married or otherwise, your home has the potential for a “yours, mine, and ours” problem in the book department.

Separate but Equal, or Joint Custody?

Even couples who enjoy a hot romance may prefer a cool detente when it comes to blending books. You might decide to keep your personal collections completely separate, or only blend books related to your mutual interests or things related to the family as a whole.

If you decide not to mix your collections, you’ll need to at least designate space for who gets which bookcases and shelves. But this leaves questions:

  • How do you achieve fairness?  

Do you opt for parity?

Your instinct may be to just start unboxing your books wherever you’ve identified as a good space for you, like how the first college student to arrive picks the bed and gets the nearest shelf. That’s fine in a dorm room, where each item has its mirror image, but whose apartment or house has truly equal (and equally appealing) space?

If you decide to choose parity, is the solution equal shelf space or equal number of books? What if one person has hundreds of thin volumes of cozy mysteries but another has far fewer titles but they’re all thick and leather-bound?

You may scoff, but I’ve seen married couples who otherwise seem sane and satisfied in their love come to verbal blows over one having more books taking over their joint space. Leaving aside that all but the mildest scuffles might be better suited to the marriage counseling couch than the organizing session, it’s better to anticipate the problem and talk out the solutions.

If you do blend your collections, either partially or in total (notwithstanding your bedside table To Be Read piles), you’re still going to have a lot to consider.

  • How do you deal with duplicates?

First, there’s the issue of when the two partners own the same book. In the name of organization, Sweetie may want to keep the pristine first edition of The Sun Also Rises, but Darling has a bent copy with every margin filled with the wisdom gleaned from a much-loved college literature course (when Darling went through a beret-and-Gauloises-smoking phase).

Typically, when professional organizers work with clients who have duplicate skirts or screwdrivers or spatulas, we focus on what’s in the best condition. However, weighing the value of something that is “the same but different,” like a book that has financial value vs. one that has sentimental or intellectual value, is more difficult.

Before shelving, Sweetie and Darling need to decide how they’ll move forward. Will they purge based on monetary value or let sentiment win?

As Emily Dickinson said, the heart wants what the heart wants. If one partner pushes to purge by discounting sentiment, what will the other partner’s heart want if forced to give up too much?

This doesn’t even take into account when one member of the couple has what the other considers an excessive number of duplicates all on their own. Maybe Sweetums has a copy their first sweetheart gave them, then a refined leatherette copy, and maybe even a 50th anniversary edition? Whether it’s Stephen King or F. Scott Fitzgerald, you’ll have to come to terms regarding how much one “gets” to keep.

  • What organizing system will you use?

Will you shelve randomly, just getting everything out of boxes and onto your bookshelves, figuring you can always organize them later — or perhaps one of you doesn’t care about organizing them at all? (Yes, that was Paper Doll you just heard go, “eek!”)

Will you be systematic, perhaps by author or title or genre? Is it enough for you to separate your fiction from your non-fiction? Or must fiction be chunked into historical eras and then by author, with non-fiction classified by Dewey and his (sexist, racist) decimal system or Library of Congress

What if you want to organize by genre and your Honeybunny painstakingly orders (and reorders) books in the order HB intends to read them? Readers have quirky preferences. In Anne Fadiman’s famous essay Marrying Libraries (linked below) she proposed to organize American authors alphabetically by last name, but put British authors chronologically, and then their works chronologically by their publishing date! 

How to organize books is hotly contested. A You.gov survey a few months ago asked more than 29,000 Americans how many books they owned and how they organized them. The results shows a variety of preferences; what’s the chance your Romeo or Juliet organizes books exactly as you do?

(I’d like to refrain from judgement, but — have you met me? I understand the 28% who don’t organize their books, but the 5% who don’t have books? Please, dear readers. Don’t fall in love with serial killers or people who don’t have books.)

  • What role should aesthetics play, particularly with books in public spaces (like the living room or den)?

Should crumbling (but well-loved) books go on the home’s fanciest library shelves? What if one person wants to organize by color, while the other is nauseated by anything too removed from the Dewey Decimal System?

If you share a library with someone who organizes books by whether the cover is red or purple, will you start re-thinking your commitment to the relationship?

What about rules for home library organizing? If you (like Paper Doll) are the type to bring all books up to the edge of the shelf, how will you share your library with someone who pushes books all the way back of the shelf so that the fronts aren’t smooth and picture frames and knickknacks get piled in front of them, or worse, overflow books get double-layered in front of the books in the back and … OMG, I’m hyperventilating!

  • What about the inherent public-facing messages related to content?

What if your partner is embarrassed by your middlebrow tastes? (Maybe they shouldn’t be such a snob about your collection!)

Perhaps you’re cringing at the political leanings reflected by your partner’s books? (You might start wondering if you shouldn’t be with someone whose politics give you “the ick.”) 

  • How will you organize the finances of growing your mutual libraries? 

This is part of a larger discussion in your household. If you’re “just” cohabiting, then you may each buy whatever books you want with your own money. But if you’re married, this is a whole other marriage counselor/financial advisor/professional organizer triple-threat conversation. Will you have “yours, mine, and ours” bank accounts and purchase books accordingly from those accounts?

What about digital purchases going forward? Having one unified Kindle account can be a mess, not only for organizing your digital libraries, but for dealing with ownership if the relationship sours. 

The Ugly Truth

The sad truth is that not all relationships last. The Gotye song Somebody I Used to Know is heartbreaking and universal, especially when he says,

No, you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number

Nobody wants to think about the end of a relationship — of pre-nups and post-nups and dividing community property. But other than personal photos (and the alluded-to music libraries), what could be harder to disentangle than a couple’s library of books?

  • How will you de-blend your book collections in case of a breakup or divorce?

In the mid-1990s, I lent my (now-former) boyfriend my copy of Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

N/A

The end of the relationship stung. Time heals, but I still seethe over the loss of the book.  

Which is more misery-inducing? Haggling over whose signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird this is, or playing keep-away and refusing to take ownership of The DaVinci Code or Atlas Shrugged or Eat, Pray, Love?

If you do blend your libraries, perhaps take the precaution of putting your initials on the inside cover of your books. Maybe that little insurance policy that you won’t lose your books will give you the confidence to keep working together through the tough times?

BLENDING BOOKS: THE ONGOING DEBATE

This post was supposed to be about love, and now I’ve shared all the troubles I’ve seen in my professional (and personal) capacity. Maybe you’d like someone else’s take?

This 2018 piece from Minnesota’s Star Tribune, Bookmark: Should newlyweds combine their book collections?, offers a sweetly messy take.

The truth is, though, there’s no one right answer. Even the popular blog Book Riot can’t agree. In 2012, Book Riot published How to Say “I Do” to Shared Bookshelves Without Ruining Your Relationship; nine years later, it published, Don’t Merge Book Collections.

The thing is, they were both right.

The earlier, more optimistic post focused on the how-to advice: work together to create a new, joint organizing system; display your books so you and your partner can operate from a position of strength and wisdom; “Leave your Judgy McJudgerton pants in the closet” (which is quite possibly my favorite piece of organizing advice, ever); and compromise. The author, Book Riot’s Chief of Staff Rebecca Joines Schinsky, acknowledged that if things got hot (and not the good kind) over the discussions, you might just decide to blend everything except books.

But Schinsky ends with, “Like committing to a relationship, merging your bookshelves is an exercise in hope.” She eschews the idea of an exit strategy. 

A different Book Riot author, Associate Editor Danika Ellis, was less optimistic in 2021, giving four reasons not to blend books: personal libraries are a reflection of our unique, personal selves; our sorting systems are similarly personal; our systems should work for us; and, as I’ve already noted, relationships end. More cynical than her colleague, Ellis ends with:

Your books will outlive you, and they’ll certainly outlive your relationship, no matter how charmed. So make the right call: prioritize your books. You’ll thank me later.

ORGANIZE BOOKS (WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER) WITHOUT BLOODSHED

Romantic or cynic, you can’t keep the books in moving boxes piled up around you. (Well, as I’ve seen with many clients over the years, you can, but I don’t advise it.)

A few years ago I wrote Paper Doll’s Pop Culture Guide to Decluttering with Your Valentine. It reflected my definitive approach to organizing with the love of your life. Before you think about organizing your mutual libraries, read that. (But I’ll now always look at my comment, “Purge the judgement and toss the guilt,” and wish I’d written, “Judgy McJudgerton pants.”) 

Beyond that, communication is key. You may have a history of long, romantic discussions over favorite books, authors, and genres, but have you ever talked about organization? Go through the issues I raised above: about resentment over invasion or not feeling at home, about parity and systems, about aesthetics vs. function, about finances. And yes, about how to have an insurance policy so the books don’t suffer if the relationship doesn’t make it.

Compromise is hard. I advise creating a system that requires as little compromise as possible. The best relationships are the ones where you are able to maintain a sense of your personal identity as you grow a mutual identity in a couple. You will face enough compromises in other areas of your relationship; do what you can to keep your relationship from impinging on your reading comfort.

Pare down your individual book collections, and then start with them separate —  your shelves and their shelves. You can always create shelves with books for family-specific topics like travel, cookbooks, or household care, and if you grow your family, books for any tiny humans who come along.

That said, be open to reversible experimentation. Getting rid of out-of-print books is hard to reverse, while a new organizing system causing confusion is easily remedied.

Look for helpful alternatives. If you’re both willing to blend libraries but not willing to cull duplicates, consider putting them on a bookshelf in your guest bedroom. Your guests can easily find something to read on sleepless nights. 

Create a library inventory. There are so many apps and online options, like Libib, Goodreads, Library Thing, for documenting what books you own and where you’ve organized them. Just scan your books’ bar codes and the information will populate in a database. Most let you create a field for who brought it into the household (a high-tech version of penciling your initials inside the cover). It will also help you identify duplicates if your collections are large and sprawl across rooms or even floors of the house.

LOVING ESSAYS ABOUT BLENDING LIBRARIES

No Valentine’s Week post on the romantic blending of libraries would be complete without sharing two seminal essays on the topic:

Marrying Libraries by Anne Fadiman, excerpted from her excellent book, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. (My favorite essay in the collection is My Odd Shelf, but the whole book is a reader’s paradise.)

N/A

The Books by Alexander Chee for The Morning News with this: 

It’s hard to explain how moving it was to me to sit down with Dustin’s books on the night I combined our fiction. It took me completely by surprise. I had truly thought it was an ordinary exercise. But it never is with books, I know now.

I began by carefully lifting them off the shelf, dusting them and taking them into the living room.

In some way that wasn’t apparent to me before they sat on the side table, waiting to be sorted, I could see these were the books that had kept him company in those years before he knew me, the books that had helped him turn into him. This hadn’t quite been apparent to me before I took them down to move them.

but also this bit about duplicates, which sums up the whole discussion:

You don’t keep the doubles because you believe you may not stay together. You keep the doubles because the one you own, that’s your friend. The one he owns, that’s his. To only have one, it would be like sharing an email address.

Not everything can be shared. And that isn’t a crisis. It’s how it should be.


If you share your home with a sweetie-pie, how do you organize your mutual book collections?

Posted on: February 5th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 14 Comments

As part of our 2024 refresh of classic posts and essential concepts in paper organizing, we’ve already looked at the what it’s time to let go of, the basic tools for creating a working filing system, and the first three categories of my approach to a personal or family filing system.

In today’s post, we look at the last two elements of the system.

  • Financial
  • Legal
  • Medical
  • Household
  • Personal

With each of these categories, there are times when a paper, digital, or hybrid approach is the optimal solution.

For financial documents, I encouraged establishing a baseline paper system for building skills in financial management; digital storage is a fine adjunct to that once you have a handle on your money and the related activities. For legal papers, digital storage provides a solid backup, but for your most vital documents, you will need to access the originals. 

Last week as we saw with medical documents, paper and digital complement each other, depending on where you need to access the information as well as an individual’s adeptness with apps and software.

Those first three are the most “official” types of documents. If you don’t have access to financial or legal information, it can cause troubles with your credit history or the IRS, lead to you losing property, or even land you in jail. The consequences of not having medical information can range from inconvenient to life-threatening.

Happily, our final two categories are less fraught. Maintaining household papers helps you save money, reduce friction when seeking solutions, and provide quick answers. Meanwhile, an orderly system for personal papers helps generated a biographical history of you and your family members and develop a repository of personal research. Done well, you can avoid piles of random papers.

HOUSEHOLD FILES

You may be pretty proud of how you’ve managed your financials, but if you’re like most people, your household papers are strewn across a series of drawers, a cabinet in the kitchen, or an unlabeled hanging folder.

I get it. It’s probably easier for you to envision when and how you’d need financial — and maybe legal and medical — information. But household papers, while straightforward, can be wide-ranging, and shouldn’t be the paperwork equivalent of a junk drawer.

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home, and while your home-related papers don’t often shout for attention, they need love.

House drawing created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator

Household Inventory

Both reasons to keep a household inventory require anticipating unpleasantness, so it’s no wonder people avoid the task. 

If your house was the victim of a 100-year flood or if robbers made off with your possessions like thieves in the night (or, the way my car was stolen, in broad daylight!), would you be able to itemize your losses to the insurance company? Unless you live as modestly as a monk, you probably need a household inventory, something that identifies all the non-trivial items in the home and their value.

Unless you live as modestly as a monk, you probably need a household inventory, something that identifies all the non-trivial items in the home and their value. Click To Tweet

The other situation is no less vexing. When a marriage dissolves, the proceedings require both members of the couple creating a marital asset list. This involves not only financial assets like bank and retirement accounts (as well as liabilities, like debts and mortgages), but also tangible assets, like your Grandma’s couch, his replica of the Stanley Cup (not these Stanley cups), and the antique table you bought together.

While a marital asset list requires more complexity than a standard inventory (specifying how it came how it was acquired, whether prior to the marriage, as a gift or bequest, or as jointly-purchased property), it builds on the information in the version for insurance purposes.

Home Inventory Basics

While a future post will review the finer points of creating a household inventory, there are some basic steps to follow.

  • Pair up with your spouse, friend, or a professional organizer so that one person is moving clockwise around the room, not skipping anything, while the other transcribes the information.
  • Consider furniture, wall hangings and free-standing decor, electronics, china, silver, crystal, jewelry, clothing, books, music, and personal effects. Note large furniture/items first, then deal with visible decor, then possessions inside of cabinets and drawers.
  • Log a possession’s name or description; brand name, artist, or designer, its place of origin or how you came to own it, the general date of acquisition/purchase, and the price you paid. (To start, just log what you have; the rest can be filled in later.) Note where in the house the item is regularly kept.
  • Go room-by-room, identifying and logging possessions. 

The fastest method is to type it into a spreadsheet like Excel or Google sheets; if you hunt and peck, and can’t type faster than you handwrite, then designate your inventory partner to be the scribe while you circumnavigate the room.

Create a digital inventory file in the computer (backed up to the cloud), but print a copy for your paper files. (Most clients like to keep a copy of their printed home inventory at the front of their Household files section. You may want to put an additional copy behind your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy, in the Financial files.) When you sell or acquire something new, or replace a broken or outmoded item, mark it on the paper copy and just update the digital copy periodically

An auxiliary photographic inventory can support your written one. This can range from something as simple as taking photos from a few different angles in your studio apartment and saving them to an “inventory” album in your phone’s photo app to doing a methodical photographic inventory of every piece of art, furniture, and fine jewelry.

The effort you expend should be proportional to the value of your possessions; nobody needs a photo of your curling iron or your wobbly thrift-store shoe rack.

If you decide to keep a combined written and photographic inventory, look at a spreadsheet/database hybrid like Airtable, which is free for up to 1 GB of attachments per base, and 1000 records per base. 

There are also apps to make inventorying your space easier, including Encircle, Sortly, Memento Database, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ home inventory app, and more. We’ll discuss these in great detail in a future post.

Beyond the household

Your household inventory extends beyond your physical home. Remember to log your other spaces, such as:

  • Backyard sheds or storage pods
  • College dorm rooms (and summer storage if they don’t bring everything home)
  • College students’ off-campus apartments
  • Off-site storage units (in town, and any you maintain in other cities)
  • Anything on your boat (or, if you’re a fancy-pants type, your jet)
  • Time-shares
  • AirB&B/Venmo properties, second homes, holiday cottages, and other real estate

After you complete your inventories — and it will probably take many sessions to gather all of the information needed — don’t forget to confer with your insurance agent to make sure you’re covered for the replacement value if you suffered losses. You may need to increase overall coverage or add insurance riders for individual pieces.

Home Maintenance Records

Whatever you do to your house likely would benefit from you capturing information about your house. Home maintenance records include:

  • Seasonal household maintenance schedule
  • Contact list of all the household helpers you use, from cleaners and plumbers to the people who clear your gutters, repair your roof, sweep your chimney.
  • Service provider folders — If you have regularly scheduled services, whether indoors, like for pest removal, or outdoors, like lawn care or snow plowing, keep a folder for each company. 
  • List/description of your home’s light bulbs for under-cabinets, in-ceiling lights, and garage and/or outdoor lights. Don’t count on memory to know what base and light type goes where. (This is a lovely parting gift to pass along to anyone who buys your home!)
  • Battery record — Keep a running list of what battery sizes everything in your home needs. Remotes take AA and AAA; toys and gadgets require C, D, and 9-volt; cordless phones use 2.4-volt batteries; personal medical equipment (like diabetes glucose meters) use flat button-style batters, like 2032s. Each time you buy something that requires batteries, log the battery size here. 
  • Family emergency plans and escape routes — Check Paper Doll Organizes You To Prepare for an Emergency for ideas on what to track.
  • Fusebox/Circuit Breaker map — Over time, the labels on your fusebox start to fade. While you should refresh the writing, it’s helpful to have a chart or map to make sure you know what maps to what.
  • Trouble-shooting notes — When your toilet glugs or your sump pump whistles or something goes awry, write down what the experts tell you to do so you’ll prepared the next time!

Depending on the size and nature of your home, this section might require multiple interior file folders in a few hanging folders, or you might prefer to create a 3-ring binder with sections for each for easy access by a babysitter or house sitter. 

Auto Maintenance Records

Even if you only ever use one mechanic shop and they keep computerized records of all maintenance to your car, storing accurate records helps you financially.

Toy Car Photo by Atish Sewmangel on Unsplash

If your car’s manufacturer issues a recall or technical service bulletin, searchable at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, you may be able to recoup money you’ve already paid for repairs. Additionally, if you sell your car privately, prospective owners are more inclined to buy cars with a diligently maintained service history. Maintain:

  • Service records — Every time you get an oil change or have a repair done, you should receive a printout of what work was done, on what date, at what mileage. Whether repairs are to the engine or the body work, be sure to request documentation.
  • Purchases — Keep records of all purchases for your car, such as tires, batteries and windshield wipers. 
  • Size list — Unless you naturally remember what size tires or windshield wipers your car needs, writing this down somewhere will make life easier when you’re shopping. 
  • Mileage records — While not essential, if you do maintain mileage records for purposes other than tax deductions (like monitoring your gas efficiency), keep these here.

Don’t just crumple these papers in your glove compartment! Use interior folders for each category in one auto maintenance hanging folders. You may also want to keep a binder with copies of major purchase records (tires, engine parts, batteries, etc.) in your glove compartment or under the seat in case you need to replace an item under warranty while traveling.

Manuals for Assembly, Installation, Maintenance, and Repair

Do you speak Spanish and Japanese? Do you speak them fluently enough to reprogram your DVR or follow instructions for setting up your Wi-Fi network? If you aren’t fluent in the language in which the manual is written, say domo arigato for the service it has provided and arrivederci before recycling it!

If you don’t still own the thing, you don’t need the manual! If you give donate to charity or sell it in a yard sale, provide the instruction manual; if you throw the item away, toss the manual!

Households have a lot of appliances and random stuff. You may have manuals for:

  • Major appliances like your furnace, refrigerator, washer/dryer, etc. 
  • Small kitchen, household, and personal appliances for blenders and toasters, humidifiers or vacuums, or hair dryers — Once you’ve owned the item a month or so, do you really need the instructions? If you can’t make toast, perhaps organizing shouldn’t be super-high on your priorities right now.
  • Electronics, including audiovisual/entertainment devices, computer hardware, and software 
  • Toys and gadgets
  • Furniture — If the manual tells you how to put something together or install it and you won’t ever be disassembling or uninstalling it, the manual may not be particularly useful to you.
A note about warranties

Most warranties aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. They’re either of short duration such that the products all die the day after the warranty expires or you have to jump through so many hoops to ship the product for repair that you’ll probably buy a replacement and not bother. If you decide a warranty is worth keeping, be sure to register the product (per the instructions) and then attach the warranty to the manual.

Organizing the manuals

If you have ample filing space, an interior folder for each of the above categories should suffice, though if any of your manuals are hefty, you might want a few folders for extended categories; if a lot of the manuals are “fat,” you might need quite a few hanging folders. Don’t overstuff!

SURPRISE: Instruction manuals don’t have to live in your regular personal or family file system! 

Depending on the number and nature of the appliances in your home, you might use a three-ring binder with all of the kitchen appliance manuals (in sheet protectors). Don’t waste valuable kitchen counter space; just tuck the binder somewhere accessible, like the cabinet above your stove exhaust. Keep hardware and software manuals in magazine holders on the bookshelf nearest your computer.

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It’s tempting to keep any paper related to your home just in case, but that leads to clutter. Ask yourself:

Why/when would I need this paper? 

What’s the worst that could happen if I no longer had this manual? Most manuals are available online. When Paper Mommy bought a new TV last year, there was no paper manual, so we just Googled the make and model, and found the instructions online.

Check these classic Paper Doll posts for advice on downsizing and organizing your manuals:

YouTube is full of helpful videos, and web sites offering online user and repair manuals, like Fix It Now, SkillCat Appliance Manual Lookup Tool, and User’s Manual Guide abound.

There are also apps for finding digital versions of manuals, like The Lost Manual, which you can browse by brand or item category

Decorating/Remodeling Plans 

If all those HGTV remodeling shows give you joy, make room in your filing system for:

  • Project notes and plans for decorating and/or remodeling
  • Project budgets
  • Swatches of upholstery and paint samples
  • Receipts — Generally, all receipts go in the Financial files. However, once the current tax year has passed, if these receipts don’t fit your “big ticket item” file needs, they may still be useful for identifying where you purchased items you might need repaired, replaced, or augmented. 

Gardening Records

Are you an out-of-doors person? Paper Doll is decidedly in-of-doors. However, if your yard includes plants, shrubbery, or heirloom flowers or you have a vegetable garden for which you need to maintain adequate rotation records year-after-year, make a few interior folders for a gardening  hanging folder. (Digital files or apps are equally fine. This is a low-stress category!)


PERSONAL FILES

We are all guilty of keeping excess personal papers out of habit. Maybe some secret part of us imagines we’ll be asked to provide resources for our biographers someday? Perhaps we fear our memories will fail in our later years. (But will memories of having earned Most Valuable Player in 8th grade soccer matter to us in our 80s?) Paper Doll won’t judge you, but make things easy on yourself and those who will come after by making your personal files orderly.

Break down your family’s Personal section by individual (just as we did last week for Medical); each person’s records are divided into items of personal history and personal interest. If your entire family has specific activities or pursuits (like attending your house of worship or planning an annual family reunion), create a “family” section as if the collective family were an additional family member.

Personal History

These represent who you were and are. Each sub-category can generally go into its own interior folder.

Educational History

The older you are, the less important these documents become for use in the outside world; it’s up to you to determine how much you value them for personal use. 

  • Academic transcripts
  • Standardize test scores (SAT or ACT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT)
  • Letters of recommendations from professors or academic mentors
  • Select academic papers — If you have your diploma, I encourage you to toss anything that doesn’t make your heart sing. Unless you wrote a brilliant blue book essay or world renowned paper, only keep what bolsters your self-esteem (and only until you no longer feel the need for extrinsic rewards).
  • Continuing education credits or certificates
  • Your senior or graduate thesis (If it’s bound and published, display it on your bookshelves or coffee table. Great job!)

Toddler Graduate created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator

Professional History

The longer you have been in your profession, and particularly the longer you have been out of a the workplace altogether, the less you need. Keep whatever records your profession requires; for everything else, pare things down to just what is truly meaningful. These may include:

  • Licenses and/or certifications — Only keep expired ones if your profession or insurance requires proof of prior licensing.
  • ResumesModern resumes are designed to be read by algorithms and are so different from what GenX or Boomers recall. Your LinkedIn is probably more accurate. Keep only what allows you to identify dates and locations. 
  • Professional letters of recommendation or of gratitude from clients, customers, superiors, or vendors. (Again, this is just for warming your heart.)
  • Citations of bravery or success
  • Newspaper clippings (but not the entire newspaper or section) noting your professional successes, wisdom, or acumen.
Military History

Basic military service records go in the VIP section of your legal paperwork; things like your separation paperwork allow you to prove your service record and collect VA and financial benefits. 

However, your military history also includes the more personal records of your time in the service. You may choose to maintain:

  • Enlistment records
  • Training and qualification records
  • Copies of your military separation papers (the originals will be with your VIPs)
  • Citations, decorations, and awards, along with copies of written references submitted in support of you earning them. 
  • Letters of commendation
  • Correspondence regarding replacement of medals

Toddler Navy created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator

Public Service History

Maybe you served in the Peace Corps or Teach for America. Are you a Big Brother or Big Sister? Do you hammer for Habitat for Humanity? Perhaps you’ve been involved in local or national politics or held leadership roles in your community. If you have documents or clippings that are meaningful to you, and which you will revisit, keep a folder of these.

PERSONAL INTERESTS

Generally, anything that brings you joy, delights your intellect, or warms your heart or soul falls under personal interest.

However, my advice on the personal interest category has changed so much in the 16 years since I began blogging. Nowadays, most of what you save is no longer clipped from tangible newspapers and magazines but from the internet, using the “web clipper” applet for Evernote, OneNote, Pinterest, or the bookmark or “save” feature in your social media accounts.

Pursuits

That said, if you do have documents and papers related to your physical and intellectual pursuits, you can make interior folders for these general interest categories.

  • Hobbies —  Keep only the reference material that provides information you don’t already know or can’t access quickly via the web.
  • Volunteer activities — Keep ID badges or registration materials you’ll need, plus memorabilia that is deeply meaningful to you.
  • Memberships — Unless you’re a member of a secret society (oooh, cool!), most of your materials will be digital. Be discerning about what you keep.
  • Issues/Interests — Read, purge (or share), and move on. Before you clip something tangible, Google the title to see if there’s a digital version you can save. (Unless it’s a photo of George Clooney; don’t toss photos of George Clooney. This is still a civilization!)
  • Genealogy — For expert help with this, see Paper Doll Interviews the Genealogy Organizers.
  • Travel — Travel magazines still abound, so if you are planning a trip using tangible resources, keep a folder for each location, but understand that the 21st-century world changes quickly. Verify the hours of operation of restaurants and sights via the web.
Success

Bask in tangible proof of personal successes. You’ll get no pushback from Paper Doll if you save letters of gratitude or praise, benchmark chips (30 days, 1 year, etc.) from 12-step programs, or anything that reminds you of challenges surmounted. We all have rough periods, and a success file can help us through them. (As mentioned this before, keep a Success folder or tag in your email for the same purposes.)

Correspondence

Save real correspondence that contains valuable information or emotional weight; part with cards penned by Hallmark containing only a scribbled signature. 

Inspiration

We GenXers posted magazine clippings on the inside of our high school lockers; we graduated but never stopped clipping! Sadly, print magazines have gone the way landline phones. If you come across print materials that stir you to think, write, create, or dream and really will review your inspiration folder, have it it. But please consider just saving it to your photo app.

Humor

Before the internet, people used to photocopy jokes (and then photocopy the photocopies) and cartoons; it was the precursor to sharing memes and reels on the web. A shocking number of people still have piles of those old jokes and giggle when they come across them while sorting piles of clutter. In a perfect world, I’d have you scan them to an album in your photos or upload them to a notes app, but you probably won’t do that. At least gather up your tee-hees, toss what’s offensive or outdated, and keep a folder labeled Funny to flip through on days when you’re feeling down.


While this ends our Reference File Master Class series, we will be examining classic Paper Doll topics, especially file-related, throughout 2024. 

Posted on: January 29th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

For our final post of Get Organized & Be Productive (GO) Month, we’re continuing our refresh of classic posts and essential concepts in paper organizing. So far, we’ve looked at: 

Paper Doll Shares 12 Kinds of Paper To Declutter Now

Reference Files Master Class (Part 1) — The Essentials of Paper Filing

Reference Files Master Class (Part 2) — Financial and Legal Papers 

Today, we continue onward with the next element of the reference papers in your personal or family filing system.

  • Financial
  • Legal
  • Medical
  • Household
  • Personal

MEDICAL FILES

There’s a special name the information you maintain about your medical life: a personal health record (PHR). With the financial and legal documents we covered last week, I strongly recommended using to develop your file management skills; however, you’ll see that with medical information, I recommend a hybrid approach with paper and sometimes a digital one.

Your Role as Personal/Family Medical Historian

You may wonder why you might need to keep medical paperwork of any kind. After all, don’t the doctors all have your files? It’s not like the average person has a collection of all their own dental X-rays and test results laying around. But there are certain reasons you should keep at least some of your medical information, if not your actual records. For example:

  • When you go to a new health care provider or visit the hospital, you will be asked for a detailed medical history. Will you really remember the years and types of all of your (or your family members’) illnesses, surgeries, and complications? Which physicians were seen and what their contact information was? Which medications caused allergic reactions? It’s your job to provide that information.
  • If you change health insurance companies or apply for life insurance, you’ll have to provide a detailed medical history. If you are found to have given even the teeniest of wrong answers, your policy could be voided retroactively and you could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars of healthcare!
  • First responders may need information in a hurry. This is why you need to keep updated copies of your medication lists (medication names, dosages, prescribing physicians) in multiple places, immediately accessible. (See Organize to Help First Responders: The Vial Of Life for details on this specific issue.)
  • Quick access to accurate information may determine a medical course of action. For example, if your college student calls to say they had a minor accident and the student health center wants to know how long ago they had a tetanus booster, don’t you want to give the right answer? (Better yet, arm your adult kids with copies of their records so they’ll know!)

Doctor With Stethascope Photo by Online Marketing impulsq on Unsplash

  • If you’re in the ER or at Urgent Care and are asked a question about your medical history, you can’t rely on your primary care physician’s records. The doctor’s staff may be unreachable on weekends and holidays, or in the evenings, or on inclement weather days.
  • Your physician or dentist may retire with little notice, giving you no chance to get copies of records. (I’ve had three doctors and a dentist retire in the last 5 years. Yes, I’m starting to take it personally!)
  • If you can prove you’ve already been tested for certain things, you may be able to avoid unnecessary (and expensive) medical tests.
  • If you have proof of immunizations, you can make sure you’re protected against all sorts of yuckies without having duplicate ouchies! (Yes, these are the correct medical terms.) Proof also ensures that your children can attend school or go to summer camp. (You do not want to spend the days prior to driving cross-country to your student’s new campus rushing to find a physician who will squeeze your 18-year-old in for shots.)  
  • Speaking of immunizations, if you ever work or vacation outside North America, you may need proof of health and immunization for travel; you don’t want to have to contact your doctor over and over and be beholden to their convenience and schedules. (For more, check the CDC’s Yellow Book on Traveler’s Health.)

Additionally, you may be responsible for making decisions or overseeing care for someone else. This might be your child or your spouse, where you can rely on your memory. But what if you’re involved in the care of an elderly and/or ailing relative? Wouldn’t you prefer they had this information organized and available to you?

And what if you’re the one who is ill and needing someone to advocate for your medical well-being? While it’s important for your healthcare proxy (the person with your medical Power of Attorney) to have access to the full picture, sometimes it’s just helpful for your loved ones to be able to provide educated input when you are feeling woozy or distressed. 

Methods for Organizing Medical Information

To start, create a hanging folder for each person in the household. How many internal folders you’ll need for each person depends on how much information pertains to each individual.

One folder may suffice for younger, healthier individuals with limited records. However, my clients often use three — one for medical information, one for dental information (often including extensive orthodontia plans), and one for vision (to track vision changes and safely keep eyeglass or contact lens prescriptions until needed). If anyone in the family has a specific, ongoing medical condition (diabetes, arthritis, etc.) add extra interior folders as needed so you can track specialized medical information.

There are other auxiliary methods for maintaining medical records

  • 3-ring binders — If you or someone in your family has a complicated medical situation, a chronic illness, or is undergoing cancer treatment or dialysis, and is visiting many doctors and hospitals, often having to supply information repeatedly, a sectioned-three ring binder for mobile use may make it easier for you to take notes or have providers make copies of your information. Consider this an adjunct to your paper file system, with sections for appointment dates, notes, special instructions, and test results.
  • Medical Organizer — If you are in college or newly graduated, your filing space in a dorm or small apartment may be limited. To get you started, you may want to use a something like the multi-pocked Smead All-in-One Healthcare and Wellness Organizer.
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  • Digital records (DIY approach) — Spreadsheets like Excel or Google sheets, or typing and/or scanning to note-taking apps like Evernote or OneNote allow you to maintain records and access them digitally. Collect and collate your paper files first; transfer notes once you feel like you have a handle on things. 
  • Digital records (using apps) — There are a number of Personal Heath Record apps available, from Apple Health and Android Health built into your phone, to free and paid apps like MyID, FootprintID, and MyChart
  • Patient Portals — Doctors, medical groups, and hospitals have patient portals where the medical providers store information for you (and other providers to access). Depending on the portal, you may be able to upload and download information for you own use.

DIY digital storage, PHR apps, and patient portals all have advantages and disadvantages for different user types; we’ll discuss these in greater depth in a future post.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A bit of preventative organizing of your files and information is worth the effort to preserve your time, money, and possibly even your health.

I'm sure you're familiar with the old saying, 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.' A bit of preventative organizing of your files and information is worth the effort to preserve your time, money, and possibly your… Click To Tweet

Let’s look at the kinds of information you can and should maintain.

MEDICAL CONTACTS

In the tense moments of an emergency (or the fuzzy moments of day 2 of the flu), you don’t want to have to rely on your memory to contact the right medical professional.

Keep contact information for each medical professional seen by each person in the household.

For each health care practitioner, include the name, address, phone, and email address. Some providers still use and require fax machines. Yes, just like 1987. If they list one on their website or appointment cards, put it in your records; you never know if another physician will have to send or receive requests via fax.

If you use your provider’s online patient portal, note how you access it (app? URL in the browser?) and your login credentials.

To get you started, collect information for any of the following that are (or might be) applicable for the members of your household:

  • Primary care physician (Internist/Family Practitioner)
  • Pediatrician
  • Gynecologist/Obstetrician
  • Specialists (endocrinologist, pulmonologist, cardiologist, etc.)
  • Dentist/Orthodontist
  • Optometrist/Ophthalmologist
  • Alternative Care Practitioners (acupuncturist, chiropractors, herbalist, massage therapist)
  • Nurse line for your insurance company, for when you’re not sure what to do, whether something is an emergency, or whom to see. If you do not have insurance, check to see if your state’s Department of Health has an Ask-a-Nurse line.
  • Your regular pharmacy — Additionally, if you spend time in other places (Grandma’s house in Florida, a time-share, your child’s college town), list your preferred pharmacies there, too.

Unless one family member sees a lot of specialists, a sheet or two paper tucked into a folder in the front of the household medical section (in front of personalized folders) usually suffices.

If you create a mobile medical binder, put this at the front.

Digital approaches to tracking medical contacts

If you’re building a personal health record digitally, either in addition to or instead of a paper record, your options (from least to most effort) include:

  • Snap photos of appointment/contact cards and store in an album in your phone’s photo app (labeled Medical Contacts) or in a cloud-based note storage system like Evernote or One Note.
  • Enter each contact in your phone’s contact app. You may want to enter each physician prefixed with “Dr.” (even if, strictly speaking, they aren’t doctors) or “Med” so that when you look at your phone, all medical professionals will be in sequence for quick and easy scrolling. That way, if you’re feeling panicky, you can focus on all likely names at once.
  • Create a page in a spreadsheet (like Excel or Google Sheets) for medical contacts. Don’t forget that you can have multiple spreadsheets in a workbook, with each sheet having its own tab at the bottom, so you could build your entire personal health record in one workbook, for you and your entire family. 
  • Use the contact fields in a medical record/PHR app.
  • Keep a contact list in your primary care provider’s medical portal if there’s a field or module for that.

As a caveat, know that you can’t always get on hospital WiFi or access cell service, and when panicked you may not be able to remember your passwords. (A digital password manager helps with the latter.)

MEDICAL HISTORY

  • Basic details “cover” page — birth date, sex assigned at birth, blood type, organ donor status, status conditions you’d want to remember to share first (organ recipient, current cancer diagnosis, diabetes, etc.) 
  • Medications (see next section)
  • Immunization records — Use these links to review what childhood and adult vaccines are standard and/or required: 

If you have difficulty getting your immunization records, check out the CDC’s recommendations for locating your “owie” records. Additionally, you may be able to access your (or your children’s) immunization records through your state’s Immunization Information Systems (IIS).

  • Test Results — Keep a record of standard and specialized screening results like cholesterol and other blood test results, and bone density tests for women, and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests for men, as well as letters confirming results of colonoscopies, mammograms, pap smears, etc.
  • Personal Medical History — Log any serious illnesses, fractures, accidents, surgeries, transfusions, or procedures. 
  • List any chronic (long-term) health conditions, such as arthritis, asthma, diabetes, or high blood pressure.
  • Log all reproductive health and pregnancy history. 
  • List mental health issues — as with physical health, note any mental health conditions, treatments, and medications as well as the dates.
  • Record any implanted medical devices — These may include pacemakers, artificial hip or knee joints, artificial heart valves, implanted lenses after cataract removal, etc. Patients with implants are given cards with serial numbers. Maintain the cards, but keep copies with you (in your wallet or digitally), for when you travel.
  • Keep a detailed family medical history — Use an online template, like this one from the American Medical Association or the US Surgeon General’s My Family Health Portrait.

MEDICATIONS

What medications do you take?

If you are relatively young and healthy, your response to the inquiry might just be one daily Flintstones vitamin, preferably an orange Dino or purple BamBam. But if you are over 40 in North America, there’s a good chance you take any of a variety of meds for cholesterol, GERD, blood pressure, blood glucose, anxiety, depression, and/or other conditions.

As I’ve previously written, in November Paper Mommy fell and fractured her pelvis in two places. In the ER, and again when she was moved to a room, she was asked about her medications. This is not a fast, easy recitation for most people, and wouldn’t be easy to recall when in agonizing pain. I happened to call just as the nurse was beginning to log the information, and asked if my mom would prefer me to fill the nurse in. Because we’d set up primary care provider’s patient portal, I was able to log in and recite each prescribed medication, vitamin, and mineral, dosage, and time of day it was taken.

Reporting accurate meds and dosages ensures that care for secondary issues isn’t compromised when an acute condition causes hospitalization.

Prescription Photo by Polina Tankilevitch at Pexels

For most families, a page in each individual’s “Medical” folder may be enough. However, if your family members take many prescriptions, you may wish to keep a separate folder to track all medications. Compile your own list or spreadsheet, or download a free template, then print a copy for your files (and your binder, if applicable).

Include each medication’s brand or generic name, dosage, frequency (number of dosages per period — as needed, daily, weekly), prescriber (if applicable), purpose and date started. It may also be helpful to list the method (pill, inhaled, injection, patch, etc.). Remember to reference:

  • Prescriptions — Your instinct will be to list meds you take every day, like oral contraceptives or meds for preventative and treatment purposes. But don’t forget acute-care drugs that you might take as needed, like anti-vertigo meds, Epi pens, migraine medicine, or rescue inhalers. Log everything!
  • Dietary supplements — Some vitamins, minerals, and health beverages can, even when not prescribed, can have an adverse effect on your health. 
  • Herbal remedies — Whether you take them based on your own research or as recommended by alternative care providers, a full health record (and report to physicians) must include these.
  • Non-prescription medications — Include low-dose aspirin therapies for preventing heart disease and stroke, or any other OTC meds you take.

ALLERGIES

Keep a page in each family member’s medical folder to note whatever allergies they have to:

DENTAL AND ORTHODONTIC RECORDS

Dental health is closely tied to medical health. Oral health can impact cardiac and hematological health and pregnancy, and conditions like diabetes and osteoporosis can impact oral health. Good medical and dental records complement one another.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a detailed dental treatment plan, but if your doctor or orthodontist provides a written treatment plan, keep it in that individual’s Dental folder. Keep notes regarding when you’ve had dental X-rays and what procedures you’ve undergone.

Dental Photo by Enis Yavuz on Unsplash

Your dentist may need to know what medications you take, particularly blood thinners, and what medical conditions (like asthma, mitral valve prolapse, or epilepsy) you have, to ensure safe treatment.

VISION CARE RECORDS

Keep records of your prescriptions for easy vision-wear re-ordering; you never know when your eye doctor might retire. If you don’t see the same ophthalmologist every time, consider keeping copies of your old eyeglass/contact lens prescriptions in your vision care folder, in reverse chronological order.

VETERINARY RECORDS

You probably consider your pets to be part of the family. Keep veterinary medical records in hanging files just behind those of the human family members. Each pet needs just one file folder — file reports and proof of shots in reverse chronological order. (Just pop each new thing in the front of the folder.)

HOW TO GET YOUR RECORDS

In your twenties, your medical file may only include your immunization record and notes on occasional healthcare visits. However, starting your filing system early will make it much easier to know where to put notes as your medical history (and family) grows.

What if you don’t even have any medical records to even start this paperwork? 

  • Check with your parents.

It’s possible that your mom kept your childhood immunization records with your baby book. Paper Mommy did, and it made it easier when I was trying to figure out when and whether I’d had certain types of immunizations.

  • Contact your doctors’ offices and tell them you want to create a personal health record.

If you don’t have a complex medical history, this might be as easy as reaching out to your childhood pediatrician (if they’re still practicing) and your current primary care physician. Alternatively, you could wait until your next appointment, and request your records then.

If you’ve had multiple physicians — not the random provider you saw when you visited the Doc-in-the-Box you had when you had a cold 15 years ago, but specialists you’ve visited for diagnoses and/or treatment — try to make a list, do some Googling, and see what contact information you can put together. Then contact them to request copies of your records. 

If you’ve had any serious hospitalizations, contact the hospitals to see what records you can get. For any physicians, clinics, or hospitals, the longer ago it was, the harder it will be to get your records. But something is always better than nothing.

You have a legal right under HIPAA to obtain copies of your medical records. 

  • Be specific about which medical records you want.

You probably don’t need every single record. After my father died, I went through the paperwork he’d saved, and there was everything from office visit summaries to medication lists that were just copies of records from the prior appointment. Get the essentials, not the also-rans.

  • Sign a release form.

Each office will make you sign a form to release records to yourself just as though you were authorizing them to release the records to another doctor, insurer, or individual.

  • Be prepared to pay a copying fee.

Depending on how extensive your records are, you may be asked to pay a fee to cover the time and labor for copying the files; you can avoid a mailing fee if you can offer to pick the files up from the office yourself. Ask how long it will take to get copies of your records.


Stay healthy, work toward collecting this information slowly, and next week we’ll close out our look at the five major personal filing categories with household and personal papers

Posted on: January 22nd, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 12 Comments

As we move through Get Organized & Be Productive (GO) Month, the annual initiative sponsored by the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO), it’s the perfect time to revisit classic posts and essential concepts in paper organizing.

Two weeks ago, we looked at Paper Doll Shares 12 Kinds of Paper To Declutter Now, and while the items listed there aren’t the only papers you can purge, they’re a great start for lessening the clutter so you can see what you own, need, and must organize.

Last week, we began our modern refresh of the basics with Reference Files Master Class (Part 1) — The Essentials of Paper Filing. You can sort and purge papers without those filing resources, but having them allows you to create a system that can grow and expand as your needs change. Even somewhat orderly stacks and piles are better than disarray, but a good filing system assures you that everything won’t be sent into chaos when the kids and pets (or spouses behaving like kids and pets) chase one another through the house.

via GIPHY

As I’ve been teaching my professional organizing clients for 22 years, all reference papers can fall into one of five categories. Today, we’ll be reviewing the first two:

  • Financial
  • Legal
  • Medical
  • Household
  • Personal

FINANCIAL FILES

In almost any household, whether you’re a family of one or 10 (and I mean, geez, even the Brady Bunch, with Alice, only had nine!), financial paperwork makes up the bulk of almost any personal or family filing system.

It’s the nature of living in a Western, capitalist society in the 21st-century — everything centers around whatever represents having or owing little green pieces of paper. At least our Canadian readers have much more colorful currency.

Canadian Frontier Banknotes @2006 Bank of Canada

Your financial files keep track of money coming in (in Yoda-speak, quite literally, in-come), money going out for expenses, money we are investing and (hopefully) growing for future use, and everything related to money we give governments to run things. (If we don’t have the focus and energy to organize our financial paperwork, how would we ever deal with having to raise our own armies and fill our own potholes?!)

Let’s look at each of these categories, in turn. 

Transitional Money

Most of your files will relate to money that’s coming to you or paid (or at least owed) by you. But all that money tends to funnel through a few central locations that serve as receiving and funding sources. Generally, these are bank (or credit union) accounts and brokerage accounts.

Bank/credit union statements reflect the monthly status of checking, savings, and trust accounts. These represent collections of funds that are in transition, basically at a weigh-station until you determine where the money is going. Accounts may accrue interest or have fees associated with them, and some (like certificates of deposit) act like investment accounts, but are still basically interest-bearing accounts. Take time each month to make sure these accounts reflect what you think they should

Brokerage statements reflect investments. Separate these by investment type, like retirement, college savings, goal-related (vacation funds, Christmas Club accounts, etc.), first, and then sub-categorize (and alphabetize) by company. So, in the Retirement hanging folder, you might have interior folders for your 401(k), an old 403(b), IRAs with Fidelity and Vanguard, and so on. Each account should have its own folder. 

Clearly label folders with the financial body (bank, brokerage, etc.) and account type; if you have more than one account of the same type at the same institution, put the last four digits of the account number on the file label.

Income

However many people in your household have a job (or jobs), income is likely reflected by pay stubs from employment. In ye olden days, they were truly stubs from checks received from employers. Nowadays, almost everyone gets paid electronically by direct deposit, but often receives printed pay “stubs” showing not merely what was earned, but any deductions from the paycheck. Common deductions include:

  • FICA (payroll tax, which goes to Social Security and Medicare) 
  • Other income tax (federal/state/local)
  • Insurance premiums for health, life, and disability coverage 
  • Retirement contributions (which may or may not be matched by employer contributions)
  • Charitable contributions (also called payroll giving) like United Way
  • Wage garnishments for child support or other 
  • Union dues

(If your income is derived from your own business, keep business files separated from personal files.)

While employment is the main category, it’s not the only type of income. You may also receive paperwork reflecting receipt of alimony or child support, Social Security income, disability payments, IRA disbursements, personal loans repaid to you, stock-dividends (outside of a dividend reimbursement plan) and lottery or gambling winnings.

This leaves aside illegal proceeds; Tony Soprano isn’t likely to give you a 1099 for the bribe he paid you. (Tony Soprano also didn’t give me a lot of options for clean language, even when I found a really applicable filing-related, if potty-mouthed, clip.)

Whether you regularly receive money or get a one-time lump sum, keep records for tax and other legal reasons (like divorce and child support proceedings, Medicaid evaluations, etc.)

Maintain an interior folder for each type of income you usually receive to make it easy to check your 1099s against when preparing your taxes. If you have multiple sources of income within one type (and get lots of paperwork for each), label a folder with the name of each high-volume payer.

Outgoing Money (Expenses)

In business, they’re called Accounts Payable. These are your regular (monthly, quarterly, annual, etc.) plus occasional (unexpected) lump-sum payments, reflected by bills or statements, like: 

  • Monthly/periodic personal/household bills — rent or mortgage, utilities, auto or health insurance, etc.
  • Credit cards statements
  • Loans — personal, auto, college, home equity, etc.
  • Medical bills — these may be one-time or part of an ongoing payment plan
  • Tuition — 
  • Miscellaneous invoices or payment records reflecting anything for or which you wish to keep careful records, like tutoring, music lessons, tuition, professional organizer, fitness trainer, etc. 

If your bills are paid by automatic withdrawal, verify that the proper amount was removed from your bank account or charged to your credit card, and then file the papers away. (For now, we’re assuming paper files; we’ll cover scanning and digital filing in the future.)

You may not enjoy the paperwork, but ignoring money issues won’t make them go away. If you struggle with keeping track of finances, learning to manage them in paper form makes money feel tangible, builds financial management skills, and increases financial awareness.

Ignoring money issues won't make them go away. If you struggle with keeping track of finances, managing them in paper form makes money feel tangible and 'real,' builds financial management skills, and increases financial awareness. Click To Tweet

If you receive paper bills but pay each individually online, write the confirmation number and date of payment on the statement. If you still pay by check, tear off the stub to mail back with your payment (assuming you’re not doing online bill-pay), note the check number and date of payment on the larger, non-stub portion of the statement. 

Create an interior (manila) folder for each account you hold. It doesn’t matter if you use generic terms (cable, power, water) or company-specific (Spectrum, ConEdison, Springfield Water). The key is to create labels that reflect the way you think. Keep it simple — the more complicated the system, the more friction will prevent you from filing things away.

If you have multiple accounts for the same company — for example, one water bill for your city penthouse and one for your summer cottage (or more likely, one bill for each of several student loans), label folders to differentiate between the two. (So: “Water — Park Avenue” vs. “Water — Park Avenue”; “College Loan — 1st National” vs. “College Loan — Fred’s Bank.”)

For credit cards, if you have more than one card from any one issuing lender, put the last four digits of the card number on the label (AmEx – 4321, AmEx – 9876) to help you file or access papers quickly.

Label a hanging folder for each sub-category. If you have more than one hanging folder’s worth of interior folders, just label the first in the sequence. It will be obvious from the interior labels that you’re still in that same sub-category. 

Taxes

Create at least one tax-prep folder, or have one for medical expense records, one for charitable donation records and a third for “other” tax issues. Each January, when you start receiving W-2s and 1099s, pop them in your Tax Prep [Year] file folders. Once your taxes are completed, create an interior folder for a copy of your filed return and all supporting documentation.

As an alternative to collecting active tax filing year documents in file folders, you may want to sequester them in a portable tax according file, whether pre-made like the Smead All-in-One Income Tax Organizer.

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Be consistent with labeling; don’t write Tax Stuff 2023 and 2024 Taxes. I recommend Taxes [Year] and if necessary, append a clarifying note for further folders, like Taxes [Year] Amended or Taxes [Year] Audit.

While you must maintain careful tax records and supporting information, you only need to keep the most recent year or two in your active family/personal files. If you’re short on space, everything else can go into easily-accessed file archives, such as in a banker’s box.

Simulated Money

You may have things that aren’t money, but represent (or are the equivalent of) money.

For informational records, like quarterly or annual statements reflecting either employee benefit plans (like if you’re vested employee-ownership stock program), it’s easiest to file these as if they were investments. Just label them consistently and clearly.

However, don’t keep stock certificates, Bearer Bonds, or other valuable paperwork in your family files. Keep papers of significant value in your safe deposit box (see Ask Paper Doll: Do I Really Need A Safe Deposit Box? or in a fire-proof safe.

You may also want to create a folder for simulated money with value, like gift cards, gift certificates and store credits owed to you. To keep from forgetting about them, set a monthly reminder on your phone to check the folder and spend your play money!

Financial History

For financial peace of mind and to maintain control over your financial and credit history:

Download your free credit reports from Equifax, Experian and Trans-Union, the three major credit bureaus, on an annual basis at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can just keep the PDF on your computer, but may find it easier to check for errors and compare year-to-year if you maintain a printout in a folder called, simply, Credit History

For each of these financial categories and sub-categories, within each internal folder, I advise filing paper in reverse chronological order. You’re more likely to need to quickly access something that’s recently been filed.


LEGAL FILES

Gavel: Creative Commons/U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Aspen Reid/af.milvv

Longtime Paper Doll readers, may think I overrepresent legal documents in my posts. Yes, you handle financial issues weekly, if not daily, but may not feel like you ever deal with legal documents. If so, you’re lucky; you’re also probably young  —but don’t feel so flattered yet — because the older you get, the more important legal documents become. Not having your essential legal and legal-adjacent records when you need them is a headache!

Whether you need to prove that you own land to convincing your daughter that your son was only teasing when he said she was left on the doorstep by elves and not really family, having vital files at the ready ranges from helpful to essential. Beyond the VIPs, the the type and number of your documents will vary depending on your lifestyle, but having a system will make it easy for you to know where to put a new set of documents or find something when you need to retrieve or verify something.

VIPs (Very Important Papers)

VIPs prove you are you who and what you say you are. Each person in the family should have a VIP folder, including (as applicable):

  • Birth certificates — prove identity and age
  • Adoption records — prove identity, age, and legal status
  • Marriage certificates — prove relationships in order to collect insurance and benefits
  • Divorce and Annulment decrees and — prove you qualify for remarriage
  • Military records — prove legal status and qualifications to collect medical, education, and other benefits
  • Citizenship/Naturalization papers — prove identity and that you qualify to vote and hold certain jobs and elected offices
  • Death certificates — to allow others to collect benefits and settle estates; to cancel certain accounts and debts
  • Passports — to prove identity for travel
  • Social Security cards — to qualify for benefits
  • Medicare cards — to obtain your medical benefits

Guard your Social Security card/number as if it were worth millions of dollars; identity theft is a nightmare, and the value of safeguarding your SSN is incalculable.

When possible, keep the originals in a safe deposit box; failing that, use a fireproof safe, and maintain photocopies in your family/personal files.

For information on finding and/or creating these documents, revisit:

Estate and End of Life Documents

Yes, this hanging file category isn’t “fun.” Nobody wants to think about the end of life. But even if you think you don’t have enough assets to bother, not having estate documents means making life much more complicated and difficult for your loved ones after you are gone. Use the three posts just above as guidelines, then speak to an attorney to get help creating these documents.

The reading of the will in Monseiur Verdoux (1947), in the public domain

Keep the originals in your safe deposit box or fireproof safe; your will will likely be kept on file with your attorney and/or the county in which you live. Additionally, clearly label and maintain a file folder for photocopies of each of the following so that you can quickly check information and know if you need to make updates or revisions. 

  • Wills — Contrary to popular belief, it’s important to have a will even if you do not have extensive financial holdings. Without a will, literally all of your assets will be frozen during a protracted probate period, potentially creating a years-long nightmare for loved ones.
  • Trusts
  • Funeral Plans and Instructions
  • Advanced Health Care Directive (also known as a Living Will)
  • Power of Attorney documents for financial and medical decisions
  • Ethical Will — This relatively newer document, sometimes called a legacy letter, allows you to create a message to your loved ones after you’re gone. It may reflect life lessons learned, apologies, and hopes.

Make an additional set of photocopies for relevant family members or anyone you’ve named as your “agent” (that is, your Power of Attorney for financial decisions or your healthcare proxy).

I am not a lawyer. And while I might rock a stunning pant suit while playing one on television, I am not your lawyer. Nothing in this post should be considered legal advice. It is organizing advice.

Titles of Ownership

You went to all the expense and effort to buy something Big Ticket, so make sure you can prove you own it. The most obvious sub-categories are for real estate (buildings and land) and methods of transportation:

Real estate

Create a folder for each piece of real estate you own and label it with the key information, like the address; if there’s no address, be succinct but descriptive.

Keep copies of the deeds and mortgage paperwork for any house, building, or piece of land (whether it’s a the Hess Triangle — the tiniest piece of real estate in New York City — or your own  private island).

Hess Triangle photo by David Gallagher — CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed

Note the exact transaction date of purchase/sale, the gross price, and the cost of any legal fees. You’ll need this data for tax prep when you eventually sell any property. Keep track of easements and liens here, as well. 

If you own a lot of real estate, create one folder for your primary residence and keep that in front of all of the others. Then create hanging folders for properties divided by state.

Methods of transportation

Whatever you own, whether they’re cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs, ATVs, snowmobiles, jet skis, boats, or even aircrafts, maintain a folder for each and keep the title and bill of sale for each. If you happen to have stumbled onto this post from RichieRich.com and have many of each, consider making a hanging folder for each of three categories: land, water, and air.

Note: proof of ownership is a LEGAL subcategory; insurance policies are legal (contract-adjacent) and go in the Insurance sub-category; payments for real estate and transportation will go in the expense sub-category of the FINANCIAL. Finally, maintenance records will go in the HOUSEHOLD records (to be covered in a few weeks.) 

Contracts

For minor contracts like for your cell phone provider, just keeping a PDF on your computer may suffice. However, you’ll want any major legally-binding contracts accessible. These may include employment contracts (your own, and anyone who works for your household — remember, business paperwork isn’t part of the Family File system), ongoing agreements for services to be rendered, and promissory notes (like loans to or from you). 

Insurance 

Yes, your insurance agent can look up your coverage, but as I learned when my car was stolen last  summer, your agent isn’t always sitting at her desk, waiting for your call.

There are a variety of insurance policies you may have, including:

  • Auto (and motorcycle, boat, plane, blimp, rocketship, etc.)
  • Homeowners
  • Renters
  • Health (including medical, dental, vision, other condition-specific policies)
  • Life
  • Umbrella
  • Disability
  • Life
  • Long-term Care

Create a file folder for each policy, clearly labeled with the policy type (and optionally, the insurer). If you have multiple policies of the same type, label with the policy type, then the insurer, like “Health Ins. — Blue Cross” and “Health Ins. — Unum.”

Consider reviewing the following posts to make sure you understand the elements of your policies:

Paper Doll Explains Your Health Insurance Explanation of Benefits

Organize for an Accident: Don’t Crash Your Car Insurance Paperwork [UPDATED]

In addition to filing your policy documents, always keep your most current health insurance card accessible, either in your wallet or your phone’s digital wallet. Your auto insurer probably provides you with two insurance cards; keep one in the glove compartment (it may be a law in your state to do so) and one in your tangible or digital wallet.

Department of Motor Vehicles

A DMV folder is a great catch-all for everything from photocopies your driver’s license and auto registration to records of parking and speeding tickets, court summonses, proof of attendance at traffic court and traffic school, etc. Keep one folder for each driver.

Divorce or Custody Proceedings

I’ve seen with numerous clients that if you have to get legal authorities involved in custody situations or property division after a divorce, the ability to quickly access paperwork helps resolve things more quickly in your favor.

File divorce and custody paperwork in reverse chronological order in your internal files; keep a digital copy in cloud storage.

Orders of Protection

If you have an order of protection (also known as a restraining order) against someone, create a folder and make multiple copies of the order to keep in it, as you may have to give a copy to a police officer and might not get the original back. Maintain a copy in cloud storage, and have a trusted friend keep a copy in case you are unable to return to your home or access your phone.

Each individual and family is unique, as are your legal and financial situations. If something arises not covered by the above, create a folder and match it to the closest related financial or legal sub-category, and make your labels clear and specific.


Hopefully, this has given you ideas for the financial and legal documents paperwork and the categories into which you can group them for easier filing and accessibility. (Remember, we’ll talk about digital filing later on.) Next week, we’ll continue with the medical paperwork category.)

Posted on: January 15th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 8 Comments

COPING WITH PAPER OVERWHELM

After last week’s post, Paper Doll Shares 12 Kinds of Paper To Declutter Now, I had a number of readers mention to me that while knowing what to get rid of helps them deal with their paper piles, they were still sometimes at a loss as to what to do with the rest.

Some fear they should be scanning everything to keep it digital, but don’t even own scanners. Others feel frustrated because even when they’ve arranged to get (and pay) their bills digitally, they still have paper coming to them. Many people feel at odds with the 21st-century pressure to have digital records, and don’t particularly feel adept with handling papers digitally. (They forget to look at email until it’s too late, or they never get around to scanning, or information just doesn’t seem “real” to them if it’s not in tangible form). 

Over the 16+ years that I’ve been blogging as Paper Doll, I’ve tried to get across that whether you use analog or digital techniques — whether for paying bills, or keeping track of your appointments and tasks, or filing or archiving your information — doesn’t matter. That is, the method doesn’t matter; the commitment to a system is what is most important.

But 16 years is a long time. Babies born during the launch of my first Paper Doll posts are old enough to drive! To give you a sense of how long ago that was, Desperate Housewives was still a top-10 TV show (and people were still watching broadcast television). The top song was Crank That (Soulja Boy) and we were all trying (and mostly failing) to do the dance.

I originally wrote about the elements of a reference filing system in the first month of Paper Doll posts, back in 2007. It’s time to revisit the topic, see how digital solutions do (and don’t) help with the paper overwhelm, and introduce new readers to the best ways to manage paper.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be taking a fresh look at how eliminate the frustration of paper files.

The Ice Cream Rule

The key to making any system work is just that — a system. That means having a location where something belongs and behavioral rules to get them there. I often refer to this as the Ice Cream Rule. If you come home from the store with two bags, one holding a half gallon of cream and one with a package of toilet paper, which one will you put away first? And where would you put them?

Even people who insist that they’re terrible with systems laugh and admit that they automatically know to put the ice cream away first; they recognize that they’ll end up with a melted mess if they do not.

They also have no worries that they’ll put the ice cream where they won’t be able to find it again — in the cupboard or the pantry — because their system not only includes behavioral cues (ice cream before toilet paper), but a geographic location (that is, the freezer) where the ice cream belongs.

Yes, people may drop the bag with the toilet paper on the kitchen floor, or hang it on the linen closet door, or actually put away the toilet paper in the bathroom right after getting the ice cream in the freezer.

Admittedly, the behavioral part of putting away non-urgent items isn’t perfect. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and when it comes to putting things away properly, ice cream’s urgency is squeakier than toilet paper. (That said, the retrieval of ice cream is likely to be less urgent.)

A HOME FOR YOUR REFERENCE FILING SYSTEM

The point, and I do have one, is that to create order with the paper in our lives, we must ensure that we know exactly where everything goes. How? Filing papers is easy once each item is assigned a place to live. All of your reference papers need to have a home.

Keep in mind, that home does not have to be a palace. You certainly can invest in filing cabinets. These range from bargain 2-drawer metal filing cabinets to office-style 4-drawer tower-style cabinets.

If you prefer lateral filing cabinets (where you stand to the side of the open drawer, rather than in front of it), there are a variety of styles and materials from which to choose.

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However, if you’re new to the process of getting your files in order, or if you’re trying to revamp an old, ill-fitting filing system, I encourage you to start fresh with something portable and accessible.

I’ve always preferred to maintain my files in Sterilite plastic milk-crate style filing boxes, which rarely run more than $7/each. They have internal hanging file rails, usually accommodating both letter- and legal-sized files, are stackable, and come in a wide variety of colors

Clients are often surprised that I prefer milk-crate style filing boxes to alternate styles, like transparent, lidded filing bins (which tend to warp over time and don’t have secure handles for making them easy to carry).

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 I also prefer the crates to portable file totes with lunchbox-style handles.

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These can be fine if you have a very small number of files, as may be the case if you’re in college or just starting life after school. But most individuals, and definitely families, find that their paper in the five main reference file categories is too much for one box to handle.

Additionally, it’s been my experience with client files that the handles of overstuffed file boxes tend to break off from the lid. Sometimes, that causes the lid to pull open, and files to spill across the floor. That’s almost as bad as melted ice cream!

Of course, if you move homes often enough that protection and coverage of your files is a concern, handled totes are at least better than flat-lidded tubs. But unless portability in the outdoors is an issue for you, given the price of totes (often $25-30), I still lean toward using crates. Your mileage may vary. 

SIDEBAR ON ACTION VS. REFERENCE FILING

Please note that this post and the forthcoming ones in this series all address reference files, papers we put away for when something in our lives trigger us to go looking for them, unlike action papers, where the information (due dates, inquiries, etc.) on the papers themselves trigger us to use them.

Action papers tend to get stuck on refrigerators or bulletin boards, or in the file risers on desks, though longtime Paper Doll readers know that for action papers, I recommend a tickler file, something with 31 slots for the days of the month and 12 slots for the months of the year. 

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Every piece of action-oriented paper gets assigned a day to either begin action or consider it; as the tickler file is consulted daily, nothing action-oriented falls through the cracks. 

For more information on using a tickler file to organize your action paperwork, I refer you to my classic ebook, Tickle Yourself Organized.

FILE ORGANIZING ESSENTIALS

To get your personal/family reference files in order, you just need these basics:

A Container for Hanging Folders

For pure reference files that you’ll be dipping in and out of, follow the cabinet, crate, tub, or tote suggestions above.

If you’re holding onto archived files — papers for a closed company, a project long-since ended but for which you have to maintain records, tax folders from more than a decade ago, etc. — Bankers boxes (flat-packed boxes that require no insect-attracting glue) are an excellent option. Avoid random liquor store or Amazon boxes, neither of which are suited to the purpose of long-term, vertical paper storage.

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Hanging Folders

The standard hanging folder is an Army green color that has never won any awards for aesthetics, but you’re likely to find that they’re the least expensive. That said, hanging folders are manufactured in a variety of colors. You can pick one color for all of your files, or (although I don’t recommend it), you can color-code the five main categories of your reference filing system.

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The standard hanging folder has two metal or plastic rods. The more modern rods are plastic, glide more easily on file rails, and are sturdier and less likely to rip away from the paper wrapped around them. However, they tend to be more expensive than the generic, Army-green basic-rod folders.

Smead and Pendaflex have long been the go-to names in hanging file folders (as with interior folders, below). I think the key is to look for the word “reinforced,” such as with the Pendaflex SureHook Reinforced Hanging Folders, which not only have the plastic rods with tension springs, but also polylaminate strips across both top edges around the rods and along bottom fold for increased durability.

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Traditionally, we recommend hanging files like the versions above. They’re expandable (up to a point) though I rarely put more than two or three interior file folders in each hanging folder. There are also 1-inch and 2-inch box-bottom hanging folders (open at the sides, like regular hanging folders) and hanging jackets (closed, with accordion-style side-gussets).

If, even after a serious culling of excess papers, you have catalogs, guides, or thick folders (such as for legal depositions or technical manuals), you may choose one of these options, but they’re not  usually necessary for standard filing.

Lastly, don’t worry about tab-related bells and whistles for hanging folders. Most come with the traditional hard plastic label tabs that you can insert anywhere along the horizontal strips covering the metal or plastic rod. More modern hanging folders have fold-up or pull-up tabs you can label; these are often erasable. 

I’m a big believer in concentrating your labeling on the interior file folder tabs themselves. Because the basic personal/family file system only has five overarching categories (as explained at the bottom of this post), if your interior files are well-labeled, hanging file labels are mostly extraneous.

Over the years, many of the clients I’ve encountered who had struggle with filing chose to only use hanging files without any interior folders — and they hated filing. No wonder! Hanging files weren’t designed to be precisely categorized folders for documents, but staging areas or category markers for general sections of files, to hold interior folders.

I tell clients to think of hanging folders as warm winter coats (an apt metaphor today, given that much of the country is experiencing blizzard conditions) while the interior file folders are more precise, covering specific topics (much like shirts cover the top half of your body, trousers the bottom half, and socks and shoe cover your feet). 

Alternatively, think of paper as having a clothing storage analogy: you have a house, in which you have a bedroom closet, in which you have rods and closets, on which you hang clothes on specific hangers and fold into specific drawers. Similarly, you’ll have filing cabinets or boxes, in which hanging folders will hold interior folders, which are filled with individual papers.

File Folders (Also Called Interior Folders)

For clients just getting started with filing, I encourage using plain 1/3-cut manila folders and not to bother with fancy or obscure tabbing systems or lots of different color combinations.

It’s not that you shouldn’t buy a colorful assortment of folders, per se (though they do tend to be more expensive), but that they introduce a layer of complications.

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Let’s say you intend to color-code your files, and you decide that all of your financial folders will be green. What happens when you open a new financial account but have run out of green folders?

Are you likely to notice you’re running low on folders and order in advance? (If you’re like the typical person struggling with organizing paper, the answer is probably no.) Are you really going to jump up right after your current organizing session to run out and get green folders. (Again, probably not.)

So, depending on your style, you might create a folder in a different color, messing up the color-coded system you decided to use (against my persnickety advice), or more likely, you might not stash those papers in any folder at all, planning to attend to them “someday,” which we all know is not a day on the calendar.

As for 1/3-cut, that means the folder tabs are on the left, in the center, or on the right. (Note: if you run short on left-tabbed folders, just turn a right-tabbed one inside out, or vice versa, and you’ll have what you need! Obviously, center-tabbed folders remain the same.)

Some clients experiment with other tab styles. While they’re less common, there are 1/2-cut file folders, sometimes called half-tab folders; the left tabs take up the left half of the folder, the right tabs take up the right half, offering a larger space for labels, like so:

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This is mostly a stylistic choice, but you are much more likely to be able to quickly replace your 1/3-cut folders with more 1/3-cut folders than to easily find 1/2-cut folders anywhere but online.

Similarly, there are also straight-cut file folders with just one tab running the entire length of the folder. They do provide the maximum space for labeling, but that’s not usually necessary for personal or family files. Again, this is stylistic.

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Finally, I will caution you against 1/5-cut file folders for functional reasons. As you might guess, those have 5 tabs — one on the far left, interior left, center, interior right, and far right. The tabs on 1/5-cut file folders are just too small to label meaningfully. You will be frustrated by these.

If you’re starting from scratch or doing a major file overhaul, buy a box of 100 folders.

Label Maker (semi-optional)

Paper Doll has terrible handwriting. This wasn’t always the case, but the longer I predominantly create using a keyboard, the worse my penmanship gets. If your writing is legible, you can probably get away with using a nice, thick Sharpie to label your folders.

However, I think everyone benefits from using the teeny bit of technology afforded by a label maker. Even if you have good penmanship, the formality and uniformity of a label maker makes a label seem “official.”

For people who are already inclined to keep up with their filing, it probably makes little to no difference. But if you’re tempted to run away and join the circus rather than file away even a small stack of files, anything you can do to make the task more appealing is going to help. That means having “nice” folders (rather than erasing and re-using folders that have been jammed in drawers, stomped on by the dog, or stained by spilled coffee).

Similarly, having labels with crisp, dark text on a white background, in a uniform font, and preferably in all-caps, makes it more likely that you’ll take your filing seriously and pop papers where they belong. 

The big names in label makers are Brother and Dymo. Professional organizers are pretty split on their strong loyalty to one of the two, and I’m no exception. I prefer the Brother line of label makers for intuitiveness and ease of use. If you’re hoping to either start a brand new system or refresh the one you have, begin with a label maker with an easy learning curve, like the PT-70MB Personal Handheld Labeler. It’s light-weight, has 54 font combinations and two-line printing, and usually runs only about $20.

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For anywhere from double to five times the price, you can upgrade to a version with added options, like Bluetooth connectivity, increased font sizes, increased memory, and number of printable lines. Start off simple, and if you really crave something with more oomph once you’ve mastered the basics, you can pass the basic one along to your teen or donate it.

As we go along in this series over the next several weeks, we’ll talk about how to label your files, but the primary concerns will be clarity, specificity, and consistency

Finally, where applicable, we’ll be talking about how, if you prefer to organize your information digitally, you’ll want to make sure your labeling system for digital files matches your system for paper files.

Binders (optional)

Some clients have three-ring binders on-hand and plan to use them for their filing system. They quickly come to realize that the more friction — the more added steps — the less likely they are to actually file their papers.

The more friction — the more added steps — in your filing system, the less likely you are to actually file away your papers. Make your filing system attractive and easy to use. Click To Tweet

That said, for most of your personal and family papers, using interior and hanging folders will be the simplest way to handle your filing. Match the piece of paper to the right file folder, pop the paper into the front of the folder (using reverse chronological order filing) and you’re done!

Voila!

However, to put papers in a binder, you have to find your three-ring hole punch, punch the holes, open to the labeled section of your binder (because binders will necessarily encase multiple sub-categories), pop-open the rings, insert the paper, close the rings, flip all the paper to one side (or else a full binder won’t close) and close the binder. See? Friction!

And that assumes you won’t pinch your fingers, which is quite the optimistic assumption.

That doesn’t mean binders are never useful. For example, for financial filing, I tend to encourage binder-loving clients to save binders for investment portfolio filing where the portfolio management company tends to send thick stacks of dozens of papers monthly or quarterly. Often, these management companies pre-punch the stacks, making for slightly less friction, and sometimes even provide binders with pre-labeled monthly tabs.

Binders can also server purposes for creating household cookbooks or for building portable family medical documentation. As we go through the next several posts, I’ll note where binders may be good alternatives to file folders.

A RE-INTRODUCTION TO THE FAMILY FILING SYSTEM

Since 2007, I’ve been talking to readers and clients about the family filing system for all of a household’s reference papers. You may have a three-generation family of seven or your household may just be you (and the voices in your head singing harmony with you when you belt out Taylor Swift while filing). 

There are no rules legislating where you keep your files. A home office is the most logical place, but if you live in a studio apartment or the only area not overrun by your children or furry friends is the kitchen desk file drawer, so be it. Keep your files where it will easy to put papers away and just as easy to get them out again.

You need good (enough) lighting to read your labels, and you (and the rest of the household) needs to not pile random household stuff (pizza boxes? stuffed animals? dry cleaning?) on top of your filing home. Otherwise, pick an area that makes you happy.

The best personal or family filing system is one offering simplicity and ease of access. You need to be able to keep related papers together. To that end, I teach that all of your personal or family reference files will fall under one of five main categories:

  • Financial
  • Legal
  • Medical
  • Household
  • Personal

Over the course of the next several posts, you’ll see that everything for you, your family, and your household will fit in these categories. “Miscellaneous” is a thing of the past!

 

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, and I may get a small remuneration (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking through to the resulting pages. The opinions, as always, are my own. (Seriously, who else would claim them?)