Nowadays, almost everything I do is online. I correspond with people through email and chat, I pay for things online, and I even fill out forms such as the FAFSA online. All of these online activities have replaced paper. I don’t receive letters, I rarely have a receipt that isn’t in my inbox, and I almost never see stacks of paperwork on my desk. I have become accustom to dealing with papers electronically. When I want to find something, I just search through my Gmail or use Spotlight and my document is there instantly for reference.
If only that was the case. Unfortunately, I still have to deal with mass amounts of paper. Since I’ve turned eighteen, the problem only seems to be getting worse. I’m receiving college-related material, bank statements, invitations to events, and so on. This has led me to my current filing system. If it needs to be dealt with immediately, it goes on my desk until it bugs me to point where I do something. If the paper needs something done or will be needed in the next couple of weeks, it goes on a shelf in my desk devoted to those papers. Finally, if it’s something which I can’t throw away and I’ll need sometime in the future, it gets thrown under my bed.
As you can see, it’s not a very efficient system at all. Sometimes I’ll have so many papers on my desk that I don’t see the truly important ones. The shelf has paper after paper stacked up to the point where the papers on the bottom are long forgotten. Lastly, throwing papers under my bad causes me to search for hours whenever I need one.
Possible Solutions
Looking at how inefficient my current system is, I’ve begun looking at alternatives and solutions to my problem. Recently, I’ve toyed with the idea of scanning papers and filing them electronically. This would eliminate the majority of my clutter, and would allow me to quickly find any paper through a search. Sadly, scanning papers requires work, and I would most likely fall behind. Not to mention, it would just feel wrong throwing out those important papers.
Another idea I’ve had was to create a database of papers. I would only need to enter in the title of the paper, maybe a few bits of information, and a location. Once it would be in the database, I would only have to do a search to reveal the location of the paper. Alas, I would still need a decent filing system. Just because I would know it would be in stack A, doesn’t mean I still would not have to spent an hour weeding through the stack.
The Solution
Since digitally managing papers doesn’t seem to be the solution, I’m beginning to see why there are things called filing cabinets. I guess technology doesn’t have a solution to everything. With that said, I’m going to look into purchasing some filing supplies. While it will cost a little bit of money, I think it will be worth it considering the huge mess of papers I have now.
Before I make that “investment,” I’m curious to find out how you manage your paper clutter. Have you been able to get everything online? If you haven’t been able to, how do you file your papers? This should be interesting, and I have feeling I’m not the only one with a huge mess of papers, so share way.
6 Comments
The best way to manage papers that I have found is a three “pile” system.
A file/pile of immediate
A file/pile of waiting
A file cabinet of files
The immediate pile is stuff that is super critical or actively being processed. You can use GTD or similar processes to bucketize that more, but the theory is sound. Keep at hand what you need right now.
The waiting pile is everything that is soon to be needed for a future task or is being waited on for action. This is everything from invitations to shipping notices to the novel for your english class next month. If you have a pending paper waiting on someone else, it goes in this pile. You must review this pile periodically. We can all debate the period for review, but it comes down to your volume and volitility. Some people need daily reviews, others fortnightly. Start out with weekly and see where it goes for you.
The filing cabinet is hallmarked by simplicity. As a general rule, by the time papers make it to the file cabinet stage they are in one of two groups. Reference materials you know you will need again (perhaps your transcripts, or FAFSA financial information) and stuff that you did this year (i.e. bank statements, donation letters, etc). The goal here is to create a simple system that you will use and that will be relatively easy to add things too. What you are banking on is the true lack of need to refer to many of the things you “have” to keep.
Note: It is my opinion that most things that you file, you will not need again. Therefore, I prejudice toward easing the time spent filing at the expense of the time spent finding it later.
I use this thought process. Things that I can identify as definetly needing again (like my marriage license copy or health insurance paperwork) go into a labelled file folder that is clear as to its contents. Be prepared to file a single piece of paper in a folder by itself!
Things that are not so clearly recognizable go into a (brace yourself!) single file folder labelled with the current year on it. This file folder will be big, possibly several inches. That is OK. Remember, you probably won’t need most or any of this stuff once you are done processing it the first time. By shoving it in one place you can look through it all in a matter of minutes to find anything you later discover you need.
Once per year, you should cull the current year file (I recommend that you cull in January of the following year) to separate out trash, things that should have been recongized as needing more permanent filing, tax related goods, and finally the rest of the story of your year. Throw out the trash, file the reference goods, do your taxes (and file them and the backup together) and put a big rubber band around the story of your year and keep it in an archive file box.
A basic ruleset for archiving is this:
1 – Keep tax returns forever
2 – Keep tax return backup data for at least 7-10 years (if not forever with the return)
3 – Keep the rest of your papers for 7-10 years
I use a set of file boxes. When the box fills, it is time to throw out the oldest stuff.
I hope this makes some level of sense.
bex
Wow bex, that makes perfect sense. Great advice.
I agree with you completely on that most papers you never need again. I know at least 90% of the papers under my bed I have completely forgotten about. They probably will never need to be touched again. I should really throw a lot of them out.
Well, once again, thanks for the great advice. I will definitely be taking it into consideration.
Remember to shred anything with your SSN on it.
Well I had a binder method for all my checking account statements, cancelled cheques, 1040′s, credit card bills, etc., etc., etc. Originally I had it called Money and each section was a year. Before you knew it, it was a 4″ binder. Then I stopped using it. Now I shredded everything. All my 1040s though are now in PDF on my hard drive – scattered about. Not only do I need a better paper filing method (I also use under the bed method), but my e-filing needs to be improved too. I have countless folders called junk/old-junk and text files called stuff to do, stuff 2 do 2, stuff 2 do now, etc.
I’d be interested in knowing what you finally decide on. If you need any further expansion on my thoughts, let me know.
bex
I’ll let you know. This weekend is most likely when I’ll get out to get some filing supplies.