by Kara Went
Stacks of important papers on the kitchen
counter? Drawers filled with bills and
receipts? Paperwork in the glove box and
on the floor of the vehicle? Dreading
tax time because all the important papers are scattered about?
Alleviate a lot of stress for yourself by
trying my filing system. It is pretty
damn easy.
Head out and purchase these two items:
1.
A colour-coded set of hanging
folders that are contained. No loose
folders!
2.
A filing box. Any kind will do, but get one that can close.
Now, the colour-coded filing system needs
to find a place to live that is somewhere you will remember
to use it. That place can be the end of
the kitchen counter, under the end table in the living room (that is where mine
lives), on the end of a desk. Just make
sure it is somewhere easy to access.
This colourful filing system is the
pre-sort or daily sort. Each person in
your house is designated a colour and any paperwork that comes into the house
that needs to be dealt with gets put in their folder. Make one colour the “to file later”
folder. Now say a bill comes in and you pay it right then, stick
it in this folder. But if a bill comes in
but it doesn’t need to be dealt with right away, put it into the coloured
folder of the person in charge of paying it.
In our house, I have the green folder, my
husband has the red, and the yellow is our “to file later” folder.
Pick one colour that is strictly for papers
you will need for tax time. Since I live
in the Yukon, I have to keep track of a lot of extra papers that go towards
taxes. We get a travel perk so I keep
hotel receipts, airline travel receipts, etc. There are also two kids in our house, so all receipts for hockey, summer
camp, etc. go into this file so we can claim that at tax time.
Take papers out of the envelopes! Toss the envelopes; they just add to the clutter.
Use the other hanging folders for whatever
else is going on in your life. Once a
week, open your coloured folder and see what is hiding in there. Deal with what you can. Paperwork that is dealt with gets moved over
to the “to file later” folder.
Now, the next part of this organizational
fun (yep, I am one of those I love
organization) is the filing box. Remember to write the year on the box, because you are going to keep it
for the next five to seven years.
Once a month, clear the kitchen table off
and pull out the “to file later” folder. It is now later. File each paper
in its spot in the file box. They
usually come with pre-made labels, but you can cross them out with a
marker and customize them however you like. Now, spend the 20 minutes and file the papers.
If your coloured tax-time folder is getting
too full, create a tax spot in the file box and transfer it all over too.
This might seem like a very overwhelming
task if you have zero paper organization in your home currently. Set aside part of a day and just round up
every piece of paper around the house into one central spot. Use a big box or laundry hamper. Put on a big pot of coffee or tea, set out
snacks, and get to work. Straight up. Just get to work.
At the end of the year stash the file box
in the basement and buy a new one. Start
the process again! Keep seven years of
your filing (just a recommendation, I hear now that five years is fine too) and
when you get to year eight, burn or shred that first year of filing and there
is your empty filing box to start anew!
It may take some time to get used to this
new organization, but just think about it as learning a new skill or teaching
yourself a very practical habit.
Happy Organizing!
