Filing paperwork: What’s your style?

If you spend more than three minutes trying to find any document, you’re wasting valuable time and impeding your productivity. Paper will never leave our lives completely so you need to work out which system for filing paperwork works for you.

I’ve developed a dead easy decision making tool for paper but what’s the best way to store and access paper well?

Get back to basics and implement a good system for filing paperwork.

Firstly, you need to choose a filing ‘style’. Select a method for filing paperwork that you feel most comfortable with. Or, if you like, use a combo of any of the following:

Piles

Pros of piles:

Low maintenance.

Works well for chunky paper, e.g. a project that involves books or bound documents.

Highly visual.

You’ll always look busy.

Can work well for work in progress as opposed to lesser used items.

Works beautifully with pigeon holes.

Cons:

You might not always be able to find things quickly or easily.

Most of your piles will contain ‘dead wood’ as you are unlikely to reassess the content regularly.

Piles on the floor can be a legitimate trip hazard.

Take up a lot of horizontal space.

I don’t consider piling to be the best method for filing paperwork, but if you must pile, use visual markers to segment information, such as blank sheets of coloured paper. Or turn chunks of paper at 90 degree angles, or segment with folders with larger labels on the edges, so you don’t have to unstack to recall the contents.

Suspension files (filing cabinet)

Pros of using a filing cabinet:

Visually grouping categories is easy, simply align tabs. For example accounts on the left, marketing in the middle, clients on the right.

Information can be easily segmented within a file using manila folders, envelopes and plastic pockets.

Cons:

Higher set up costs.

Paper can be ‘lost’ between suspension files and slip to floor of filing cabinet.

Creating labels and tabs can be fiddly to maintain, even if you’re patient and dexterous.

You may be less inclined to keep the system in order when behind closed drawers!

I suggest you use a label maker or black texta to label directly onto plastic tabs instead of using paper inserts.

Lever arch files (ring binders)

Pros of lever arch files:

By punching a hole through documents, items stay securely in place and are less likely to be misfiled.

Files are easy to maintain and cheap to set up.

Great for keeping information in chronologic or numerical order

Thanks to a huge range of colours, lever arch files tend to have a sexier aesthetic and are well suited to those of us who are visual or creative.

They work well beautifully on bookcases or in smaller offices.

Cons:

Overloaded files can topple or be difficult to handle.

Paperwork can stay unfiled if you don’t like hole punching

Doesn’t suit spiral bound, fat or very heavy documents. However, if margins allow, you can remove spiral binding, trim or guillotine edge and punch holes.

Using plastic pockets can conceal tabbed dividers, so make sure you buy ‘extra wide’ tabbed indexes.

Decide if you want to use 2, 3 or 4 ring binders and adopt that format universally. Make sure you get yourself the relevant hole punch too.

Once you’ve decided your method for filing paperwork, it helps to define your informational structure by giving yourself a visual too, such as a filing map.

Start by creating a list of the file names you’ve generated. A simple list is sufficient, or take it one step further and create a table with key headings that you can reproduce as folders within email or digital filing.

A list or map will help you avoid relying on memory or creating duplicate files. A filing map provides valuable clarity.

If that sounds all too hard, at least label your files with a bold hand using thick texta or high contrast labels.

It’s a good idea to keep key categories simple and file names specific.

Next you need to commit to maintaining your system for filing paperwork. Making sure you file regularly - you might manage it once a week or you might prefer to file on the fly.

And purge regularly! Paper kept must satisfy two criteria. It must be current [eg, information that has not be superceded] and it must be relevant.

Of course, everyone has their own preferences for filing paperwork and there are many variations on these methods. What works best for you? I’d love to hear how you manage your paper.

Lissanne Oliver is a Professional Organiser, Trainer, Author and TV presenter who helps organise people’s space. She is the best-selling author of "SORTED! the ultimate guide to organising your life - once and for all" (Hardie Grant Books).

10 comments | Add your own 1 2 | Next» View all»

Lissanne these are great tips, and I like the pros and cons you've presented. I prefer a filing cabinet, but I also find that the filing cabinet needs to be cleared out every so often because things can get a bit squishy in there as well. It's so important to have some type of filing system in place, because it can cause a great deal of stress when you can't find important paperwork in a hurry. In general, 'decluttering' your entire home and office is an excellent stress management strategy. Life is much more enjoyable when you can easily find your keys, mobile phone, glasses, wallet and family members!! ;) Lucinda Lions from Sydney, Australia | Read my articles
I prefer shelves, with folders that lie on their spines, with labels sticking out - in NZ it's the filecorp series. This way you can double your storage ability for the same amount of space of a filing cabinet, (and much more utilisation over ring binders) you can see everything you've got, and it's aesthetically pleasing to those of use with tendancies towards perfectionisn. These files behave like any ringbinder if you use the three part clips.
The only drawback is deciding how to organise your files. Denise Maffey CA from Kumeu NZ
Brilliantly simple advice. I am just embarking on a solo business based on information management for small busines and tradesmen, and this is exactly what I would be telling them. But coming from a background in records management, I would also asses strategy for management of non-current, and duplicates in case of loss to disaster (eg fire or flood). Darrin Ottaway from Sydney, Australia
Darrin- what a great business concept! I know so many tradeys who need help like yours! Lissanne Oliver from Fairfield, VIC | Read my articles
These are some great tips. I can say I've honestly never read an article on how to file your paperwork, but it was practical and I loved it - just what some of us need.
Filing is not one of my strong points, so there are a LOT of piles on my desk... but when I do bother to file, I use a combination of systems: a filing cabinet for those bits and pieces of paper that I don't need on a regular basis or are from past projects, as well as a desktop step file with folders marked 'Sales, Accounts, Marketing' etc which holds files and documents that need to be easily accessed each week. Once no longer needed, these documents go in said filing cabinet. It really works well for us! Marnie Bergan from Terrigal, Australia
Great information!
I always recommend lever arch files to my clients with extra wide dividers. Whoever invented the extra wide divider range is a genius.
Filing cabinet is hard to open, many times stuck, heavy, in my opinion; it is a pain to use. Judit Nagy from Sydney

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