Best Results Organizing

In science fiction, some of the scariest bad guys are the ones who can change shape or appearance with the wave of a hand. It’s been a while since the good guys embraced that skill — Samantha Stephens’ little tinka-tinka-tink could change her from suburban housewife to femme fatale with one little nose twitch. (Man, I wish I could do that!) However, at the 2013 National Association of Professional Organizers’ Conference and Expo (about which I wrote last week), a few new organizing-related products used their shapeshifting superpowers for good and not evil.

Bound For Glory

Ringed binders hold a great deal of appeal in the world of organizing and productivity. Unlike hanging and manila tabbed file folders, binders are sturdy and stand upright of their own accord on desks and shelves. Binders are perfect for categorizing by chronological periods, as we see with brokerage and other financial statements, and are ideal for keeping large chunks of related information (such as one might use for attending lots and lots of committee and board meetings at a NAPO conference) easily accessible. If you drop a folder, the contents may fly everywhere; with binders, you’ll merely break a toe. (Painful, but certainly more organized, from a purely paper perspective.) 😎

However, binders have some downsides. A collection of binders can take up excessive desk and shelf space. That’s fine when you’re grabbing the materials on a regular or frequent basis, but once the contents of a binder have moved from active and essential use to reference status, you don’t really want to use your prime desktop real estate for bulky binders you won’t need to touch. And, though you wouldn’t value a binder above rubies and pearls, even standard, quotidian binders can be pricey, so using them for one or two projects over the course of a binder’s lifetime, and never switching out the contents, is a waste.

Sure, once a binder’s contents go from hot to lukewarm to ice-cold, you can take the papers out of the binder, create file folders, label them and pop them away into cold storage (i.e., reference file drawers or boxes). But file folders aren’t built to handle the bulk that’s usually stored in binders, so you’ll need to label multiple file folders and divide the contents into constituent sub-categories. It’s not a big deal, but sometimes you might hope for a more convenient solution.

Another problem with most binders is that they’re poorly made. Binders are generally manufactured with two pieces of thick cardboard for covers, a narrower piece of cardboard for the spine, all enclosed in latex and plastic-coated sheaths, while the metal interior spine and circular rings (which are often clunky and imperfectly aligned) are permanently attached. If the coating frays or peels away from the stiff boards, or if the cardboard bends, the ring housing becomes useless.

Staples Better Binder

Staples has come up with something surprisingly new and charmingly improved. The Staples Better Binder is made of latex-free solid plastic for the covers and spine, attached not with easily-torn plastic, but reinforced at solid, flexible rubber joints to make it heartier.

The D-rings are strong, easily-opened with a touch of a button, and fit back together neatly, not with jagged teeth, but a male/female paired closure.

The binder offers some nice labeling options. The front cover has a clear, heavy-duty transparent pocket for large-scale labeling — select a decorative page, a phone list, even “Diary! Keep Out! This Means You!” on a full-size piece of paper, and just slide it in. Instead of applying a label to the outside spine, the plastic spine has a clear label window into which you can insert a replaceable tab on the interior, allowing you to update the binder title and keep it protected, without dealing with peeling labels or sticky adhesives.

Through hundreds or thousands of openings and closings — to review homework assignments on the Industrial Revolution, company meeting briefings (that make modern staffers feel like they’re indentured servants, albeit with free WiFi), or employee handbooks covering everything from open-toed-shoe policies to records retention schedules — the binders stay snappy-looking and flexible. The interior front and rear covers also have curved, easily-accessed, clear plastic pockets, allowing you to keep track of handouts even when you don’t have a three-hole punch at the ready.

Yes, these advances make this a better binder, per se, but what makes the Staples Better Binder truly a BETTER BINDER, worthy of capital letters, is the shape-shifting capabilities. The metal spine and D-rings of the Staples Better Binder are removable! These Removable FileRings are held firm with a tongue-and-groove alignment, so a simple sliding mechanism keeps them in place or releases them, at your pleasure.

Simply grasp and pull the rubber ends of the ring housing to release the metal from the interior plastic spine of the binder.

Lift it up and away from the binder, flip it over, and the ring housing serves similar duties as a file folder, keeping all of the material together, while the rubber ends work like metal arms of a hanging folder. You can even label the back of the ring housing so you can read the contents from above and access the contents you want as easily, if not more so, than you might have from a series of file folders. Nifty, eh?

But what of the binders? Now what good are they, without rings? Additional FileRings are sold separately, so you can actually reuse the reinforced binder shells over and over, moving the rings to your filing cabinet to store whatever documents must be saved — without muss, fuss or waste. (Of course, you Paper Doll readers know to evaluate whether you actually need to maintain papers and don’t file things willy nilly, right?)

For the official word on how the Staples Better Binder fits into your paperwork organizing protocols, check out the official video:

My fabulous colleague Deb Lee also made a video with Staples rep Margaret right in the noisy NAPO 2013 Expo hall, illustrating exactly how the removable FileRings work. (Deb makes great organizing videos, so be sure to subscribe to her YouTube channel.)

The reusable reinforced binder shells, suitable for 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper, come in multiple sizes (1″, 1 1/2″, 2″ and 3″), accommodating paper capacities ranging from 275 to 600 sheets, and in 14 colors (black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, olive, blue, teal, dark teal, pink, fuchsia, plum and purple).

Prices range from $8.49 to $14.49, and the Staples Better Binders are, not surprisingly, available only at Staples. As they are a little pricier than standard binders, I’d advise saving these for when you’re schlepping your binders from home to work (or school) to committee meetings. You’ll want to use these when you’re mobile and your binders are more in danger of getting bumped around; use the traditional binders when they’re just sitting on your shelves, getting treated more tenderly.

All Staples Better Binders are guaranteed. For life.

[Note: The Better Binder Mini has the same exterior attributes — latex-free plastic covers with rubberized reinforced spine and edges — but no removable rings. The 1″ capacity Mini is designed for 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ paper.]

If you think you’d like to give the Staples Better Binder a try, now is the perfect time. Staples is offering a 50% off coupon at the web site. (Just scroll down to the second row and print for your in-store coupon.) Act soon, as the discount is only good through this Saturday, May 11, 2013.

The Staples Better Binder wasn’t the only organizing-related super shapeshifter at the NAPO Expo. Watch this space for other reviews of neato organizing products and services.

[Disclaimer: A Staples Better Binder was included in every NAPO 2013 attendee’s conference bag, including Paper Doll‘s, without any inducement to comment. All opinions are my own. Who else would claim them?]