Day 12: Household Filing System

Paper clutter can be overwhelming. Piles of paper tend to multiply and take over the best organizational intentions. To conquer it, you need a simple household filing system.

Setting up a filing system gives paper piles a home. It also allows you to find important documents at a moments notice. A retrieval or archival repository.

The key to success? Purge, categorize and file.

3 Kinds of Files

Action Files

Daily or weekly use files. Usually kept in an expandable file, a tabletop file box or rack and contain action items. Action items would include; bills, short-term works in progress, correspondence and so on.

Working Files

Medium-term filing. These documents should be kept in a file cabinet, office desk drawer or cabinet. Working files would include; employment records, employment benefits, insurance records, bill statements, bank statements, working tax files (archived after 3 years), medical information, home maintenance, receipts, manuals and warranties, education information such as transcripts, diplomas, etc. and an inventory of your safe deposit box.

Archived Files

Long-term filing that may be kept in a safe, a bank safe deposit box or other secure location. These documents would include; income tax returns, real estate documents and receipts, insurance policies, automobile documents, and warranties.

For more information on what to keep in files, visit publications.usa.gov

A Filing System

Color-code the household filing system. Color-coded files are visual labels that increase efficiency both in filing and retrieving. A well-organized filing system is one that allows you to retrieve the information you need as quickly and easily as possible. To keep it simple, consider buying color-coded hanging files to organize information into 5 unique categories that might look like this:

• Green – Financial

• Red – Medical

• Yellow – Insurance

• Orange – Personal Files

• Blue – House Files

Common File Categories

Automobile: maintenance records, repairs, lease statements, warranties.

Banking: banking files for all accounts.

Bills and loans: split into either category or by name of payee.

Health and healthcare: bills, individual family health records, and so on.

Housing: mortgage files, repairs, receipts.

Insurance: set up by name of insurer or by category – Homeowners, Life, Automobile.

Legal

Retirement

Valuables: appraisals, inventories and so on.

Calendar

The office area is so important that we’ve split it up into 4 days as follows:

• Day 11: The Office
• Day 12: Creating a Filing System (today)
• Day 13: Organizing Important Papers and Original Documents
• Day 14: Creating a Mail Station

Checklist

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Objective: Create a household filing system to eliminate paper clutter, easily access important documents and efficiently manage information.

• Identify locations for filing systems and create spaces for 3 types of files: action, working and archival.

• Sort existing paper and files into categories that make sense for your lifestyle. Ideas: financial, medical, insurance, vehicles, household, education etc.

• As you come across original documents (birth, marriage certificates, titles, estate files, and so on), scan for a backup digital file.

• Purge and shred all unnecessary paper.

• Sort paper and documents into labeled files and put in place.