Simple Ways in Organizing your Life

The most common approach most people seem to default to for filing is to put paperwork from each company in a separate folder. That is pretty straightforward thinking but it can mean lots of filing and usually some procrastination and therefore an ever-increasing stack of paperwork "to be filed"--and one more chore that ends up on your To Do list.

Professional organizers will tell you not to over-complicate things for yourself. If you seldom refer to previously filed bills or other paperwork, one of your best organization tips for regular, monthly filing may be to have just one folder, drawer or filing box into which you put everything. That way, you accumulate your paperwork chronologically and filing literally takes second rather than hours. At the end of the year pull out any tax related information, file items that need to be kept longer than one year in your long-term files and toss the rest.

A variation on this idea for short-term filing for your bills and paperwork is to use a standard accordion style file or portable filing system you make find at your local office supply store. As you pay bills, put them and any supporting paperwork in the folder according to the month in which you paid the bill. The portable version of these files has the added benefit of being lightweight and easy to take with you; features that are important if you sometimes pay bills away from home, such as on the train while you travel to and from work.

When you do need to retrieve previously filed paperwork, it is quite simple regardless of which variation of this method you use. First, you don't need to remember which file in a whole drawer full of files you put the paperwork you need. You have either just one, or at most 12, places to look. Second, most of us can remember the month, or at least the season, when we paid the bill we need and that alone will probably pretty quickly pin point where in the drawer, box or file to start looking.