An Effective Home Filing System That Saves You Time
As a Seattle-based professional organizer, and when it comes to helping our clients, one of the biggest challenges we see is paper clutter.
But do you know why that is?
Because we all have it! #Shocker
Every day we’re being inundated with a fresh round of paperwork.
From permission slips, art projects + schoolwork to receipts + the mail. So, when push comes to shove, most of us have no clue how to manage what to do with it all.
When it feels like you’re drowning in a sea of recycled trees + the second you start to make some headway — more paper piles start piling up on the kitchen counter or entry console table…
Ask yourself…
Where does paperwork that’s too important to simply recycle sit in my home?
Do I have a filing system?
How’s my filing system working?
I know it’s frustrating but take a deep breath friend, exhale all the stress that comes along with clutter.
Because today we’re going to teach you the basic fundamentals to creating a home filing system that actually works.
And then because we’re servers at heart… we’re gonna deep dive into how to make as much of it digital as you can.
And the a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e best part…
You won’t be suffocating in paperwork anymore!
In fact, our home filing system is so simple + intuitive it’s something everyone should have. #Biased
And it doesn’t take but a few small efforts to keep it organized!
Ready, friend? Let’s dive in.
The #1 Thing You Must Do For All Home Filing Systems To Work
If you only take one piece of organizing advice from our words today make it this.
When it comes to creating a home filing system, “Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan.”
An absolutely b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t quote from a dear family friend of ours (+ former NFL head coach) Dennis Green. We love it because it highlights coach’s hunger for success + and his unflinching belief in following a system to reach it.
Sidenote: He was 97-62 in his Minnesota Vikings coaching career, so clearly he was doing something right!
Alright, enough digressing…
Fortunately, for us, Coach Green’s advice is universal. And it can easily be applied to creating + managing an organized home filing system.
But hit the brakes scooter!
This doesn’t mean hop in your car, head to Office Depot + with no rhyme or reason, fill your shopping cart with a bunch of manila folders, hanging files + a label maker.
Sure shopping therapy feels good because on the surface it looks like you’re making forward progress.
However, in time, you’ll likely find yourself still unhappy, frustrated, discontent + overwhelmed with it all. And for those of you, sitting in the middle of the paper clutter madness nodding your head *wink* don’t fret my friend.
Step 1: Plan Your Work
The success of creating a home filing system hinges on p-l-a-n-n-i-n-g.
Minimize
What we view as clutter, others may view as necessary — hence the reason we have junk mail that magically appears in the form of catalogues, coupons or other random offerings.
Those folks in the marketing department view these parcels of paper as being necessary. We, however, view them as unwanted clutter :)
Beyond the random junk mail that’s fairly easy to toss into the recycling bin — how are you supposed to actually minimize the clutter of bills + other relatively important documents?
Well, lean in a bit closer dear because the answer to this question is quite easy –– stop them before they make their way into your home.
Huh?
The beautiful thing is, we live during a magical time where almost everything is accessible online. Be it bank statements or your water bill these things can easily be delivered to you electronically instead of mailed to you in hard copy paper form. Thus, the next step in creating a home filing system that actually works is to minimize the physical clutter by going digital.
Step 2: Minimize The Clutter By Going Digital
In fact, I’m excited to share with you exactly how we digitized every receipt, bill + nearly every other important document for our own personal home filing system later (psst… did I mention that our entire business is also 100% paper-free?)
Feeling a bit nervous about taking the plunge? Not quite sure want to digitize everything? Good, you shouldn’t because there are several important documents you want to keep physical copies of but how do you ensure your digital + physical filing systems communicate?
Well, we’ll talk about that here shortly but for now your job is to go digital. Anything that you can receive online statements or paperless billing from go-ahead + do so.
Categorize
Whatever you can’t digitize or you simply don’t want to, then we’ll want these to be organized into several broad categories. In fact, even if you’re going completely paperless + digitizing everything in sight, you should use these broad categories too.
Step 3: Categorize Your Home Filing System
Remember when I said our filing system was simple? Well, try this…
Separate your categories into two piles.
We call them the TWO P’s: Personal + Property.
Everything that is related to you, your family or your loved ones is categorized broadly as “Personal” + everything that is related to your home, your cars, or your devices is “Property.”
Piece of cake, huh?
Told ya it was easy :)
Sub-Categorize
If you’re thinking to yourself...that was too simple, you were right. But, it doesn’t get much more complicated.
What we do from here is truly begin to customize the home filing system to align with the needs of each client.
Everyone’s personal + property categories are slightly unique or different based upon where they are in life.
To help get you started, we put together a few sub-categories that you might need for both Personal + Property.
Step: 4 Sub-Categorize Your Home Filing System
Personal Filing Sub-Categories
certificates for birth, marriage, etc.
divorce papers
pay stubs
passports
health insurance documents
report cards (for each child)
education transcripts
tax returns
wills
medical records (or each family member)
Property Filing Sub-Categories
Home maintenance (quotes + receipts for recent household repairs)
receipts for large-ticket items
warranties and owner manuals (electronics and appliances)
a copy of your lease, if you rent
home insurance documents
Loan documents
mortgage agreements
utilities bills
car documents
Work It
Now that you’ve planned this out, you’ve got a strategy to minimize the clutter, categorize broadly + identify your very own custom-tailored sub-categories for your home filing system, all that is left is… to work your plan.
Step: 5 Work The Plan
It seems on the nose, but it’s crucial to organize anything in your home. But especially to maintain your home filing system you actually have to use it.
It can’t be this thing you set up once + then forget about because it’s hidden in a closet, inside of a filing cabinet, inside of folders with sub-folders… ya get our drift?
It won’t be this thing that magically files itself just because you’ve gone ahead + bought a ton of pretty color coded folders + labels.
How To Use A Filing System For Your Home
You ensure you’re using your home filing system by setting aside time on your calendar (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually etc) to reinforce your new filing habits.
What you’ll find is that the more frequent you “work your plan,” the easier + more routine the home filing system becomes. The more you customize your categories + sub-categories for all that you need — the less time it takes to file them away.
I can't tell you how much our clients appreciate the fact that we say loudly — organizing systems fail — when we ignore them. And our organizing members love the ongoing organizing because when life gets hectic the relationship with their organizer is what holds them accountable + keeps them on top of their home filing system.
In other words, the best filing system for your home is the one you use :)
A Digital Filing System
How We Digitize Every Receipt, Bill + Important Document To Be Nearly 100% Paperless
When we started Elegant Simplicity back in 2009, we quickly realized that giving a client physical copies of paperwork was not only wasteful for the environment but it was also unbeneficial to the client.
We were giving clients paperwork only to help them organize it. In a nutshell, we were adding to their problem before helping take it away.
So, a few short months into our business we began delivering all of our documents digitally to clients, general contractors, subcontractors, architects + builders.
And we created a digital filing system for our business that meant less paper, better planet.
But, a question still remained unanswered.
What do we do with physical copies of bills + receipts? We began with a scanner which was big clunky + quite honestly a pain in the you know what but we understood the value + knew technology would progress quickly.
And before we knew it, we discovered an app that transformed our iPhone’s into a pocket-sized scanner.
Today, we use Adobe Scan (available in the app store) for when a paper copy of a bill, receipt or any other important document is mailed to us. We open the app, snap a picture + file it away in our digital filing system.
And we use the Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan Home Filing System for both business and personal.
In fact, the same way we categorize or subcategorize physical filing systems we do for digital filing systems. So, let’s talk about it…
How To Create Continuity Between Your Physical + Digital Filing System
Now that you know how we utilize Adobe Scan to digitize our bills, receipts + other important documents, let's talk about how to create continuity between your physical filing system and your digital home filing system.
Luckily, this isn’t as hard as it sounds because you’ve already done the preliminary work of identifying + creating all of your sub-categories under “Personal” + “Property.”
Let’s assume you’re working predominantly with a physical filing system.
What you want to do is duplicate every folder you have in your physical filing system and create those exact same folders in your digital system so that both systems align in naming + hierarchy.
In other words, the filing system you use physically has a digital counterpart. Now, you’re not going to file something digitally + then also physically but we want the two filing systems to speak to one another in the way you’re accustomed to seeing them.
This allows you to digitally file all your recurring monthly bills (the bills you pushed into paperless billing — i.e. mortgage statements) but also have folders in the event something was incredibly important + could not be digital.
Interested in more? You’ll love a beginners guide to important documents!
Like I promised… easy as pie, friend!
While creating a home filing system isn’t hard it can be overwhelming + time consuming especially if you want things done right + you’re simply unsure how to go about them.
Certainly, it takes more time than we hope, lots of energy + sometimes even a bit of elbow grease to get it done but cross our hearts, that if you use the Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan Home Filing System you will not only fall head over heels in love with having your entire home filing system organized but it’s scaleable + actually works — no matter what challenge you think is in the way.
It’s such an incredibly rewarding process to declutter + get organized because you’re able to finally enjoy your home with no paper sitting around on the surfaces. #OhTheFeeling
And guess what boo, if you’re feeling a bit like a floundering fish out of water know that we’re here to lend you a helping hand, let’s chat.
P.S. If you loved this article then you’re going to really enjoy the4 Days To A More Beautiful + Functional Home.