Reference Files Master Class (Part 1) — The Essentials of Paper Filing
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.
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).
I also prefer the crates to portable file totes with lunchbox-style handles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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 TweetThat 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?)
Paper Doll Post:
Great advice, Julie. From my experience, even though my clients go paperless for the most part, they haven’t quite figured out what to do with the papers that need to be physical. I, too, have a variety of totes. The ones for taxes are always in transparent lidded file bins, while the current year or older client correspondences are usually in a lateral filing cabinet. The system works for me, and I have reduced it to 1 1/2 drawers and only one bin for tax-supporting paperwork. I particularly like the accordion folders for my taxes so I can easily divide the paperwork up by category for my business/personal.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I guess it just goes to show you the variety in our industry’s client base. My client base tends to be older than yours, I suspect; residential clients are probably anywhere from 0% to 40% digital in any area of their lives (calendars, bills, files), and even my business clients hover around the 50-60% marker, with interactive areas (bill-paying, scheduling) more likely to be digital, and reference documents more likely to be paper. I still see a lot of printing out of PDFs and even web sites!
I definitely agree about the appeal of accordion files for tax documents, and you’ll see references to that in next week’s post.
Love that ice cream analogy. It makes perfect sense!
Also love your explanation of why you like the crates. They are beautifully sturdy and easy to use. I have a client for whom we’ve been using a banker box. It began as a temporary solution, but has morphed into her file box. I think I’ll suggest we retire that and get a crate. The edges of the cardboard are getting pretty worn.
I personally don’t love putting the manila folders into the hanging folders because I don’t like how they stick up. I use the manila folders to off load from last year. I do think they are helpful if you take sections of your files in and out a lot, and I know people have personal preferences on this.
Always like the 1/3 tabs. 100%
It took me a long time to find a crate I like, but the Sterilite crates (with what I call the “TARDIS round things”) are sturdier than the competition (both among crates and in other storage formats). I still believe in the good old Bankers Box, but any file storage without (easy-sliding) hanging rails has to go to the back of the line for me. That’s why I think they are well-suited for archival storage, because you can skip the hanging folders and just pack a lot of interior folders (vertically) into a Bankers box.
I agree that the “sticking up” of interior folders can be an annoyance, but there are two keys to not having that happen. The first is using the best-quality housing. There are a LOT of file drawers and even cabinets with poor design such that the hanging rails are placed too high in the interior of the drawer; thus, if the bottom of a hanging folder doesn’t fall low enough, the interior files themselves extend beyond the threshold for closing the drawer. It’s one of the reasons name-brand filing cabinets like Steelcase or HON rather are so expensive; the craftsmanship is superior to what we find in most consumer-oriented cabinets. (I had a two-drawer pink filing cabinet in my younger years. It looked great, but the rails were uneven and the drawers squeaked!) It’s also why we rarely see the problem with crates or totes; they’re designed so the rails fit at a uniform placement that lets hanging folders fall deep enough so interior folders can also fall low enough.
The other reason interior folders may stick up is if the hanging file is overstuffed. The more files put in, the wider the hanging file is stretched, causing the bottom of the hanging folder to rise, which then lifts each of the interior folders. (I once compared it with wearing a lot of layered sweaters under a winter coat. The coat may zip up fine on its own, but the more sweaters you layer on underneath, the more the coat expands and the harder it is to close the front and zip it up. I have way too many clothing metaphors for files!)
I’ve created many filing systems in the years I’ve been organizing. It’s one of my favorite things to do- take a mass of unorganized papers and turn them into a usable system. Of course, the first step is editing out what isn’t needed and identifying what stays (and what to name it.)
As you continue this series, I’m excited to read about your filing and labeling suggestions.
The most crucial thing in filing is having a filing cabinet (if you choose that route), which works well. Nothing is more frustrating and demotivating to clients than trying to retrieve or file from a filing cabinet with drawers that don’t open easily.
The other issue is when a filing cabinet becomes too full, so there’s no room to file. That means it’s time to edit.
I’m a huge fan of Pendaflex reinforced hanging files folders (which come in beautiful colors), the Pendaflex interior file folders (cut shorter so they don’t stick out above the hanging file,) and Brother P-Touch label makers. Color coding is great if it doesn’t become a hindrance (as you mentioned) and if it’s something that will enhance the client’s experience. Color is a non-issue for some, so it’s not worth the additional expense.
A squeaking, sticking, or warped filing cabinet is the worst! So is attempting to make a without rails try to serve as a filing cabinet. (One of my most popular posts, ever, was called “Hanging Around — An After-Market Hanging File Solution That Works.” I wrote it in 2015 and it still consistently gets views because people hate crummy file drawers, and the Smead adjustable frame works so darned well!
And yes, trying to stuff too much in a filing cabinet is like trying to stuff too much body in too-small a piece of clothing.
Finally, I hope you noticed I chose a purple example folder — just for you!
I am all for keeping it as simple as possible. I do have colored hanging files in my personal files. I use the black file for long term care and computers. 😉
I have a client who liked to use open wooden crates but she has multiple cats and a roach problem, so I finally convinced her to go with plastic bins with lids.
Yes, animals and files do not mix. (And Paper Doll an insects don’t mix! Eek!) Yay for convincing your client to go with a solution that will protect her files!
I like colored hanging files; I just don’t like the price, and I don’t like the strain it puts on people who wig out at an imperfect system. I have hanging folder samples that have been given to me by companies over the years, so my hanging files mix the standard green with orange, purple, pastels, and primary colors. The “right” solution always depends on how agitated (if at all) someone will be about aesthetics.