Organize Personal Files

Many of the tips offered here for organizing personal files can be used for your business office as well, but this article focuses on personal records related to your home and other aspects of your life.

Sort by Major Categories

Start organizing your papers by sorting each into separate categories. Along the way toss any old brochures, duplicate papers, junk mail, and other records that are of no further use to you.

I’ll list some major sorting categories below. You may even want to subcategorize depending on the amount of material you have for any given subject. For instance if credit cards are a major category you may well want to have separate files for each card type. In fact I recommend separating them in this case to avoid confusion between statements and receipts.

Another example would be to split Health/Medical records into dental versus medical and so on. You may even wish to keep records separate according to family members. These are just a few examples to give you ideas, but ultimately the records will be customized to fit your personal taste.

To simply the sort process I would advise organizing by major category first. Then you can assess whether or not you wish to break each category down later.

The following is a list of major categories. Note that the list is not necessarily comprehensive. Each individual will likely have their own special categories depending on their lifestyle and property. This list should get you started though.

• Automotive/vehicles(may include titles, auto insurance, repair receipts)
• Bank statements
• Credit card statements
• Loans
• Life insurance
• Health/Medical records
• Income tax(include donations here)
• Utility bills
• Social security records
• Employment related records(retirement info., pay stubs, etc.)
• Investments(separate according to each fund or account)
• Pet records(Vet visits and bills, vaccinations)
• Purchase receipts and warranties(mostly for big ticket items)
• Instructions, diagrams, parts lists, and other literature for appliances, power tools, electronic equipment, etc.
• Home related papers for major systems(furnace, air conditioner, stove, oven, sewer or septic system)
• Garden plans and notes
• Homeowner’s Insurance policies and declarations
• Birth certificates and adoption papers
• Clubs and organizations
• Hobby related papers
• Church related records(Baptism records, tithe receipts, confirmation certificates)
• Wills
• Safety deposit box contents listing
• Travel documents
• Addresses/Phone numbers/Dates(Birthdays)
• Military discharge papers/Veteran related benefits info.
• House Documents(Mortgage papers and documents)

You may choose to break down your categories in other ways. For instance you may want to place auto insurance within a category titled insurance rather than automotive. Church tithing records could go with your tax papers.

For keeping income tax records I recommend that you label a folder for tax with the tax year in January and stash any papers related to tax there as the year progresses. For instance if you write a check to some charity immediately deposit the record or bank check carbon, etc. in the tax folder you labeled. This way when April rolls around all your papers will be in one place and you won’t have to go digging around to find them all.

If your home office doubles as a place of business be sure and keep all work related and personal papers separate.

Keep originals of important papers like Birth certificates, house title, wills, life insurance and the like or any other papers you deem important, would find it hard to replace, or that would cause you great hardship if they were destroyed, in a safety deposit box or fireproof safe. Only keep duplicate copies of these in your files at home for quick reference.

Once you have sorted through your piles of paper you should have a good idea of what you will need to organize them all. For some ideas on storage and filing products see this link at Office Depot. Naturally space and budgetary issues will be of prime concern. I recommend a filing cabinet or box coupled with hanging file folders and tabs for labeling the hanging file folders.

Color folders are useful for classifying subjects for instant recognition. Label the folders as well and then alphabetize them within your cabinet or box by placing them in the hanging folders. Colored labels are available and you may find them useful in further coding your folders.

When selecting folders be mindful that they come with tabs of varying sizes and spacing along the folder edges. Choose a variety that will make viewing the folder labels easier when they are filed together. These tabs should be staggered for folders that are placed next to one another.

Labels may be hand printed or printed from your computer. For large jobs you may find it convenient to purchase a file label printer uniquely designed for such a job. They come in various models and prices.

Maintain Order

Once you have your ducks in a row you will want to maintain the orderliness of your system. Plan on purging your files about once per year. Based on record retention guidelines you will want to pitch the files that have past their required retention date. For some guidelines and a list of typical retention time frames check the following link Records Retention.

Note that these are strictly guidelines. It is always wise to consult a lawyer before disposing of documents. The guidelines here were divided into business and personal sections. In some cases these are overly cautious, for instance federal income tax returns typically only need to be retained for seven years unless they are needed for some legal matter.

authored by Lon Britton


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