9 Tips to Get Old-School Organised with a Filing Cabinet
I have the memory of a fish, things go in one ear and straight out the other. So it’s comforting to me that my filing cabinet remembers all the things that I forget.
Though life is getting more digital by the day, nothing beats having an ordered set of physical files that you can actually thumb through, a place where hard drive failures and viruses have no jurisdiction.
Sure filing cabinets may not be the sexiest office equipment you ever buy, but a good cabinet is like the super hero sidekick you always wished you had.
Here are 9 tips to get your filing cabinet kicking butt and taking names:
(1) Buy a Good Cabinet:
There are some things in life that you just know you’re going to be using a lot. When that happens, it’s worth a little extra to get the right product. Look for a cabinet that slides easily, is properly weighted and is fire-resistant (so that even an office fire won’t lose your client’s assets).
If you’re like me you might also want to give your new filing cabinet a name. In case you’re wondering, mine’s called Sophie!
(2) Put it in a Handy Location:
Frequency of use is a function of proximity. The more effort it requires, the harder it’s going to be to stay on top of your filing. So keeping your filing cabinet where you can reach it, and never off in the garage or spare room. Remember this isn’t your archives, this is your day-day operations.
(3) Get a Label Maker:
Having a label maker makes a world of difference to how neat and tidy your cabinet winds up looking. Where scribbles can be hard to read as you quickly scan over the files, a clear, legible black on white or reversed label, should leap out and catch your eye.
Be warned though, once you start labelling, it’s hard to stop!
(4) Organise your cabinet into two sections, jobs and business:
Ideally each should occupy a different drawer. In your business drawer, keep everything that relates to your business itself – accounts, receipts, legal documents, contracts and so on.
In the other you’ll be putting in files for each job you work on. We’ll call these your ‘job bags’. Note that it can work well to literally use some sort of sealable folder or bag tucked away into your more traditional filing folders.
For each project you’ll start a new job bag and everything relating to that job goes in there. Whether it’s a disc of assets your client sent, notes from a meeting or a printout of an important email, file it all together and label.
It’s generally a good idea to file your job bags up by client, and keep those in alphabetical order. So put in all your clients beginning with ‘A’ and for each client, put in all their job bags. Then do the same for ‘B’ and so on.
(5) Print Out Important Documents:
While I don’t advocate printing stuff unnecessarily, there are times when it’s worth killing a bit of tree to preserve your documents properly. Important information gets lost all too easily in your email folders, file folders and desktop. Printing off a copy of anything that would be really painful to lose may cost a sheet of paper, but it’s worth it.
(6) Keep a Filing Cabinet Outpost:
Because at any one time you are probably in the middle of a job, it can be a good idea to keep a job bag out open on your desk. If left unchecked this can get messy, so keep a particular place for the current project and make it an outpost of your filing cabinet. When you change what job you are working on, change which job bag is open at this location and resist the tempation to start having multiple outposts.
(7) Subfiling:
Some jobs just never end, and some clients can’t help but weigh you down with files and assets. If a job bag is bursting at the seams, split it in to two sub job bags. Don’t split it arbitrarily though into part 1 and 2, rather do it according to some distinction in the job. So say a job has a print and a web component you could split it that way.
(8) Purge Regularly:
Do you really need to keep everything your client gives you? Do you really need to keep those hand sketches you did early on in the job? Purge your files regularly to keep them clean and efficient.
(9) Archive Regularly:
As your jobs move from current to complete or lapsed, it’s a good idea to move the job bags (and possibly whole clients) into archival. This might be another drawer in the same cabinet, or a whole other cabinet elsewhere. Archival will help keep your cabinet up to date and less files means it takes less time to find the one you are after.
So there’s my tips to good filing cabinet usage. What works for you?
Why is your filing cabinet called Sophie??!!
Hehe nice post, I keep wondering where do you get your ideas from, right now getting my “cabinet” organized was bottom priority, but I will give it another chance!
You might want to merge 8 into 9, I regret many times things I’ve purged. I think if it was ever part of the job, even if its a cocktail napkin scribble I think its better to archive than trash. File storage boxes work well for archiving purposes. In a complete reverse IN ADDITION to paper files I like to scan things in and keep digital files as well.
First visit to your site and already an article that hits home…..
I have a mighty fine filing cabinet next to my computer desk area, it has four nice sliding drawers and lots of dividers in it….. but that’s all. Oh there’s some junk in the bottom drawer.
My personal/business filing system revolves around piles of paper work scattered around my house (I work form home).
Must try harder to get organised, must try harder!
I also like keeping a folder for inspiration – creative print ads, direct mail pieces, interesting articles, photos, etc.
Personally, when it comes to purging, I’m horrible. I tend to keep everything with the mindset of “you’ll never know”. Sketches, however, I feel justified in keeping. You never know when an old sketch will spark a new idea you never realized you came up with before.
I once knew a sophie, she had more curves than your filing cabinet probably does
No cabinet, no happiness and order!
I have a whole chapter about cabinets in my book – “One Job, Two Salaries. How to double your salary and not even tell your boss.“.
Regards,
William
I still love the filing cabinet to organize my documents. Technology progress does not mean, old way of doing things does not have value anymore.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!
Love getting Freelance Switch every day. Do you ever accept guest writers on the topic of organizing? I have a colleague, who’s a bang-up professional organizer who could provide some great “top 10″ tips on paper or tech-based organizing or time-management for your e-community as a ‘guest organizer.’ Thoughts? thanks for your work! rachel
We sure do Rachel, just click on “Contact” up the top right for details!
I actually think this could be a very handy post just not for freelancers but for most people and businesses.
I know between me and my business and personal life and between two locations at the moment. paper and other important documents are always getting lost
One of my rats is named Sophie. In all seriousness, great article. I have a filing cabinet, and the bottom is filled with an old gamecube and CDs. The top is a mess. I am inspired now to go clean it out and get organized! Thanks!
i like waffles… i mean filing cabinets they make me organised but mine doesnt cure my A.D.D. chicken curse that gypsy who sold it to me she lied!!!!
OMFG filing cabinets r like sooo cool!!I keep all my files in a cabinet too!!!!
I agree with the poster who said they use a scanner to scan old documents onto their computer before archival. I maintain a strict file cabinet in my home office with small outpost pile that I tackle once a week or more if I’m busy with a few things. I’m pretty good at organizing and keeping myself on track so my outpost pile has more than one project in it. It’s just discipline though. The more discipline you have, the more you can break the rules and get away with it. If you’re fresh, stick to keeping it simple.
For the digital side, I Gmail myself all of my scanned documents and keep all E-Mails in my inbox / archive. I label everything in my Gmail. Gmail gives you unlimited space and you can search through your E-Mail instantaneously using the power of Google search.
For digital documents, I avoid programs like OpenOffice and Word (though I love Open Office) because they are offline word processors. I use Google Docs to create searchable spreadsheets and documents. I can share them instantly with friends and they can edit them, too. Best of all — all this stuff is free.
HI Thanks for your post on using filing cabinets – i found it very interesting and helpful as I don’t know where and how to start organizing my array of manila file folders. I am a final year PhD student in Medical Sciences and am trying desperately to organise my life and paper work, so that I can clear much needed “head space”. I like the idea of a name for a filing cabinet!. I have chosen a great filing cabinet, now my next biggest problem is to start labeling and dividing. I guess i’m afraid of calling thing the wrong label as I might change them later. The tip about breaking up into business and jobs is good. Unfortunately I want to use this for not just my business, but my home files too – so I think there will be a business and personal division also. (Lucky that bought a 4 drawer filing cabinet!)
thanks again