How do you keep on top of your mountain of filing and paperwork?

[krisskross]

Has anyone got any tips for how to sort the mountain of paperwork we never get round to filing?

I am too much of a luddite to do banking etc online, but we are swamped with papers- lots of which get shoved in carrier bags.

we have got 5 full expanding files- how do you keep on top of yours?

i know this is a dull one- but someone must be doing it better than is!

that should have read better than us

Filing cabinet. With a filing tray on top of it. When the pile in the filing tray gets so high it's all threatening to slide down the back I get round to putting everything where it belongs in the cabinet. Quite satisfying, actually.

blimey, a whole filing cabinet!

I use box files, but am considering a filing cabinet, as there are too many of them now.

You will need ...

• Lever arch or ringbinder files
• File dividers
• A hole punch
• A sturdy shelf
• An in-tray

Label the files as follows:-

• Household Bills (separate sections for gas, elec, council tax, phone, insurance, etc)
• Mortgage
• Bank Statements
• Pensions
• Pay Slips

Avoid files labelled Miscellaneous.

Use the TRAFFIC system - with every piece of paper/post that arrives in your hand, deal with it straight away. Either:-

Trash it
Read it
Action it or
File it

So ... bank statement arrives in post, file it; phone bill arrives in post, action it (pay it) then file it, junk mail arrives in post, trash it.

If you REALLY can't deal with something straight away, put it in your in-tray but then remember to deal with the in-tray regularly.

Am I sad?

I keep all the important documents in a fireproof and waterproof box - just in case!

I do box files yearly and then empty and shred the 5th year each year to keep it down. Important papers not stored in that system.

Accept (wistfully) that you are a boring grown up, not a responsibility-free twenty-something living in a single room who just doesn't really need any more than half a drawer for paperwork.

The sad truth is that a filing cabinet (think of the most drawers you'll think you'll ever need, then add one) works really well for keeping papers tidy. Give in to your beige side and go to Staples...

PS It really works. Piles of papers don't. Tried both.

First thing first; declare a back log. Which basically means ignore evrything that is currently festering. If you really need something in there then you will be inventivised to find it.

Next get many lever arch files and packs of dividers. At a min i would have 5-8 files and a pack of 5-10 dividers in each ( you can tweak this as you go). Then think of your categories. So mortgage, bank statements, house bills, car bills, children's stuff etc etc. You might want to make a list of the main ones and then group them into categories, which should all go in one file. So house insurance, gas bill, leccy bill, bt etc all go in one file labelled 'House'; bank statement, saving acccount statement, ISA all go in another labelled 'Bank'. Then each day, stand by the bin and open the post. Bin extra envelops, junk mail, leaflets and brouchures you don't want immediatek
Ly. Put bills in one if two piles: To File or To Action. Once a week or howevr often deal with the To Do pile and moce to the To File pile. If something needs dealing with in the future, out a reminder in yiur phone or mark the top of the bill with a date and leave in the To Do pile.

Once a month or so, fike all the To File stuff, creating a new sub divider for each category. The more categories the better. But don't bother to sort by date - the reason being, filing by date slows down the filing stage so you are less likely to do it but if you need that bil from Jan 2011 in six months time then you will be incentivised to find it, so date order is less of an issue on retrieval.

With the 'backlog', deal with it in small steps. Take one bag and throw away the junk. Next time, sort it into categories (kids might like to help with this?) and clip with a paperclip or even better a bulldog clip.. Repeat for each bag and group together similar items. Next time, put into boxes - can be any old sort, just something sturdy that you can put away. It is useful If you can roughly date each batch of papers in case you need them again. Just scribble on the top page of a bundle the oldest and newest before boxing them away.

With the ongoing filing, once a file starts getting a bit full, oull out the papers and put in a box, again dating them roughly in case you need to access them again.

FarSide's post is brilliant!

(I do the first part of it.
Then I fall down badly on the second part.
I keep filing the intray into a box, & then the box goes into a crate, & now I have about 10 crates of papers (aka Stuff) in the attic & I can never find anything vital when I need it)

However - to begin with, to make a start on your carrier bags & expanding files, buy some box files & label them - then you can at least start to put all your fuel bills/phone bills/bank statements/pay slips/tax documents/insurance/pension/receipts/guarantees/credit card statements/whatever in one place.

This a) gives you half a chance of finding something specific later & b) lets you spot anything you might have been looking for as you go through

It's only a start, but it is a start!

oh, forgot to say, have all your boxfiles open on the table & drop things in as you go through a bag or file or whatever

Filing cabinet in living room cupboard, with box on top for unfiled letters etc. Everything to be filed away on a Sunday.

Don't muck about with box files and dividers; Frankincense speaks sense.

Have one filing drawer for all your financial/professional/legal stuff (bank statements, insurance policies, pension schemes, passports etc), and one for personal, which will include a section for each family member and contain a hanging file for things like school records, medical records, activities, clubs etc.

In fact, three drawers would be ideal but we have ours under a desk so two has to suffice.

All hanging sections are clearly labelled and it's quick and easy to pull out, say, the file for DH's health insurance or DD's school reports, or the latest bank statement.

My downfall is actually getting through the paperwork, I must admit, but my files are a sight to behold!

I only have a 2 drawer cabinet - in quite a tasteful cream ( not beige) from Staples. It's enough.

filing cabinets/drawers tend to take up room/floor space though - box files can be distributed through bookshelves/sideboards/whatever.

I used to have a filing cabinet & it was very useful, but obtrusive & not pretty! I suppose if you can organise yourself to keep a filing cabinet upstairs somewhere, & then take all your paperwork upstairs to wherever you keep it, religiously, it might work...

(Mine seems to have to be downstairs though, so box files it is!)

(of course if you are lucky enough to have space for a study or something downstairs, you're OK )

Yes we do have an office - must admit I don't like the look of them but now I've had one if we moved somewhere without a dedicated room I'd have to have a cupboard built to house it.

We have a lovely two-drawer filing cabinet in blond wood - it's tasteful enough to be in the living room. That does the job for us.

My system is as follows:

Everything that comes in on a daily basis is either binned (if junk) or is put into a small drawer in the sideboard.

When I can no longer shut the small drawer (every couple of weeks) I sit down with a cup of tea and go through each bit of paper and pay bills, throw out stuff no longer relevant, sort for filing etc. The stuff for filing is then placed in the relevant section in the filing cabinet.

When I can no longer shut the filing cabinet (every couple of years) I go through it section by section and bin/shred anything no longer relevant (e.g. the oldest bills, out-of-date insurance docs). Old pay slips, tax info and bank statements (which you are supposed to keep for seven years) are periodically shipped off into a box in the loft.

To date, I can still shut the box in the loft!!!

2 boxes per month both open. One for important, one for think you may need it. Mark well and stack. Open new ones each month, then chuck the paperwork straight in. Chances are you won't look at most of it ever again anyway. Chuck after D years, and the think you'll needs after 1 year. Obv this isn'y for car insurance and birth cert type stuff.

Read this with interest - particularly the advice from FreeButton and Farside.
My main problem is backlog. When dealing with it I never know whather it is more efficient to

a. look at each paper properly and make a decision there and then about whether tis worth keeping, then shred/bin on the spot. Obviously this will slow things down.

b. Skim read and sort everything into the rough categories you have decided on and get your box files or whatever chosen filing system set up. Then go through at a later date and weed out the redundant.

Any thoughts from the wise?

I just got a load of cheap cardboard document wallets.

I took a massive pile of paperwork and each time I came to something new, I put it in a different file and labelled it. Really small categories so it's easy to find what we need.

Some examples:
My bank statements
DH's bank statements
My credit card
Vital documents (birth certificates, NHS cards etc)
Insurance (house, product warranties etc)
Divorce (decree absolute, CSA stuff)
DH current job payslips
DH old payslips
Mobile phone bills
Utility bills

HTH :)

I love far side and want her to come and be my PA

For what it's worth, there is IMO, a serious risk of "over-filing". You need to work out a system that works for you, based on what you need to do with the paperwork. Some things are kept because we need to refer to them again often. Other things are kept in case we might need them again. They require different levels of attention I think.

For example, it may not be necessary to split up your utility bills and file them under "gas", "water", "electricity" etc. It may work well enough for you to just file all together. It does for me. When I need one of them (very very rarely), then I check through the section and then find the one I want. Yes, it takes me more time than if I'd separated them out into different sections, BUT this is offset against the time I saved in just filing them together in the first place. You need to work out what you're keeping stuff for, how you will use it and then it becomes easier to see how to file it.

For backlogs, I would do a rough sort first into "keep" and "chuck". Then if I had time I might sort the "keep" pile into "old" and "recent". The "old" stuff would get filed together as one pile and the "recent" would get filed under my new system. If you find out later you need something from your "old" pile, well at least you know where to find it and when you need it, you'll be motivated to look for it.

Since our filing is kept in the office, on the second floor of our house I have a magazine file in the living room for current paperwork. When mail arrives I open it straight away, bin the stuff I don't need (including random little leaflets, envelopes etc that come with the important stuff) and put the rest in the magazine file. Once every 3-4 weeks I sort through the magazine file, pay bills, chuck anything now out-of-date (info from school etc) and file what's left.

The actual filing upstairs is split into broad categories - house, bank stuff (loads of different acounts all thrown in together), bills, insurance, medical stuff, other and stored on a shelf in magazine files. I just bung the pieces of paper the file (no time spent punching holes, putting stuff in plastic wallets etc).

Every year I archive things - take "old" things out of the magazine files, put into carrier bag, label with the year, put into cardboard box.

The key is to find a system that is easy for you and takes only the time that you have available to spend on it. A beautifully filed set of paperwork may make you feel satisfied when you create it, but if you don't have time to manage it properly you will end up feeling even more frustrated. Do something that is "good enough".

ooh this is my NY resolution, i have a backlog of about (hmm, how old is ds? 4 and a half) yes 4 and half years worth of paperwork and filing to sort!

great ideas, thanks for the inspiration! am looking forward to buying all the stationery stuff needed (sad lady emoticon)