Filing cabinets are an excellent way to store all of your important documents, and a well implemented filing cabinet can make a business or home far more organised than it would otherwise be. The problem in these situations is that filing cabinets don’t stay organised for long. Even with good intentions, over time filing cabinets becomes highly disorganised, even to the point where they make document storage even more time consuming than it would have otherwise been! Because this is quite a common scenario, in this article we’ve assembled a few tips to help you better organise your filing cabinet both now and in the long-term.
Where to start in organising your filing cabinet
Even in an age of cloud computing, filing cabinets are still used by many businesses – filing cabinets in Sydney or Melbourne are not uncommon, despite these cities being such huge business hubs. These businesses, in addition to many others around Australia, are particularly vulnerable to mismanaged file organisation that can cause significant – but avoidable – resource losses. Although organisation may take a bit of planning, effort and time, the payoff can be considerable. The first thing you should keep in mind is to organise all your papers, particularly when there aren’t too many to sift through – it’s ignoring a few of these over a long period of time that results in disorganisation. To get them sorted, it’s an excellent idea to attribute colour-coded files and folders to certain papers. This not only helps you find this in the future, but it makes things easier to put things away (which is why so many people don’t bother in the first place). Soon you’ll be able to know what certain colours indicate to ensure this process is totally second nature.
More tips to get you organised
While you’re getting your colours organised, you might also want to label things accordingly. The trick here is to not be too specific, though – creating too many folders with too many categories will not only ensure you quickly run out of folder files, but it’ll guarantee you’ll quickly become just as confused as when you just started. Instead, make sure to start with broader categories, and within these folders you can make sub-categories. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, it’s important that you keep the important files and papers where you know they’re safe. These particular files shouldn’t be kept with your other bits, as they should be obtainable at a moments notice. You might not even necessarily need them in your filing cabinet – instead, make photocopies and keep these in your filing cabinet while your important files stay somewhere much less conspicuous. If you’re prone to forgetfulness, you might even consider giving yourself a clue as to where these files are stored!
Starting off with a strong storage solution
If you’re looking to expand your filing cabinet storage solution, it’s also a good idea to not go too budget. Although you might save some money in the short-term, cheaper filing cabinets offer inferior storage solutions, and you’ll make up the money resource cost with time resource cost in the long-term. At the end of the day, though, organisation occurs with regular attention. For this reason, allocating a certain amount of time daily or weekly will ensure you’ll never have to manage a storage nightmare again.
