Organizing tips please!

noosheen

Sun, Feb 15 2015, 2:04 pm

I need organizational tips please. I need to organize my papers, time is way overdue! So I want to maintain a system that in future will be easy to find what I need!
Specifically:
Mail- after its sorted, where to keep/what to keep?
Important papers- ie tax returns, school papers, - do I file alphabetically? Or by subject? Ie. If u have manuels for items do u keep them under the item itself or under 'm' for manuel? Does everyone in family have their own file folder ? Or under Ie if I need to file reports for my son (who is special needs so I have a lot!)
Where do u keep important receipts? For how long? Does it have its own file folder?

I know it might sound trivial but when I need to find something now I never can!

zaq

Sun, Feb 15 2015, 2:49 pm

The best system is the one that YOU will understand and use. Borrow a few organizing books from the library, take from each what makes sense to you and leave the rest. If you will never remember to look for owner's manuals under "Manuals", by all means put them under or on the side of the appliance. self-stick clear plastic envelopes (like CD envelopes only bigger) will give the manuals a home.

If you have one child with a lot of papers that you need to keep, go ahead and give him his own folder and lump the other kids together in another. Chances are you will need to access most of the kids' papers at the same time anyway, at least until they get bigger and start attending different schools with different schedules. OTOH it may be counterproductive to lump ALL of a child's papers in one folder; it may make more sense to have a folder for everyone's health records, another for everyone's school paper, and a third for everyone's passports.

A rule of thumb is to have each folder hold between 12 and 25 items. If a folder has only 2 items in it, chances are it should be merged with something else; if it has 500 items, you ought to break it down. But even this is not halacha leMoshe miSinai, and if a category with just one piece of paper speaks to you, go for it.

Before you do anything, go though your papers and purge anything that does not HAVE to be saved. Google to find out how long various papers must be saved. tax returns for 7 years, though in cases of fraud the IRS can go back 10 years. So if you have defrauded the IRS, hang on to your returns for 10 years, after which you can gleefully shred them. Titles to property--forever or until you sell the property, whichever comes first. Warranties on appliances and such--until the warranty expires, which is seldom going to be more than a few years and often much less. Need I explain that there is no need to keep warranties and owner's manuals for items you no longer possess?

If a file folder called "receipts" makes sense to you and you will know that any and all receipts will be there, then great, use that system. But be aware that some receipts will be needed for your taxes, others will be needed to reconcile your credit card charges, and still others will be needed if you want to return merchandise for a refund. If this system works for you and you are able to find the receipts you need when you need them, then whatever system you use is fine.

Bottom line, the system has to work for YOU, no matter what Marie Konda or Julie Morgenstern says.

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Feb 15 2015, 8:06 pm

You can have a large plastic envelope called "machine manuals". One hardly ever looks at them but it's nice to have them. Date them. Mark the envelope in large letters with a laundry marker and stash it. That's for those manuals that come with all machines and appliances. Sometime you need to order a part, and the phone number is there.

For the special needs child, you might need an accordion file. The whole file is just for him; the subdivisions are his various concerns.

All year, it is good to put in one place, either a pile or a plastic envelope, Tax Stuff. When you go to do your taxes, all the W2s and non-profit receipts and are in one place. They are all about that one thing, so you sit down with it, and you make sense of it when the time comes. This is a one-time file, not an ongoing file.

When you get your tax records back, take the laundry marker and put Tax XYZ Year on the large envelope, and put it where you always put them. As the years go by, you will have the file or pile year by year, in order, latest on top.

In general, the latest thing by date, the most recent, is on the top, or at the front, of any file, if it is a serious ongoing file. Before you put the thing in, check what's there already, so you know it is the next thing of that kind and makes sense with what's there already.

So, large plastic envelopes that close with a loop, cardboard accordion files, and metal file cabinets with locks are good to have. Don't be shy with your laundry marker. Write large. Use full dates with the year. Make notes to make all clear to the future you.

For different children, you might need an accordion file for each child.

You might have a separate envelope for "stuff the school sent us in general, not about any particular child".

granolamom

Mon, Feb 16 2015, 2:19 pm

noosheen wrote:

Not trivial
Throw out as much as you can, starting with the manuals.
I keep very little mail, only tax stuff
Which receipts are you holding onto? Scan and create a digital file or put them all in one folder.
The only school papers I save are class lists and the calendar, I have a folder for the lists so the kids can access it and the calendar is hanging on the wall.
I don't even save my dd's iep paperwork beyond the recommendations page, and only the current one.
You can get any paperwork you need with a phone call or email these days.
I do have one file with birth cert's and ss numbers and our marriage cert,deed and car title, another with ins policies,and that's pretty much it

seeker

Sun, Nov 15 2015, 8:46 pm

Just going to answer what I personally do. I am definitely no organizing pro, but I think my system works fairly well theoretically, I'm just not too good at the upkeep.

noosheen wrote:

What sorted? I handle each piece of mail exactly once (again, this is in my idealistic theory and occasionally I end up just tossing it to the side of my desk to deal with "later") Junk goes straight in the trash. Invitations - if I intend to attend or otherwise mark the occasion, it gets written on my calendar and then goes in the trash. If it requires a response I just fill it out on the spot, and then throw the rest of the paper in the trash. Bills - every single company now offers paperless option. I do that. It is easier for me to keep track of email than paper. Tzedakah letters - If it's an organization that I support regularly, I throw their mail straight in the garbage because I know already I am not going to forget them and will donate online. If it's a campaign that is not a regular/recurring thing but I do want to contribute, if I can't do it on the spot then it goes on that pile on the side of my desk which is generally very small because so many other things are going straight in the trash, and I make sure to address the piled things regularly. Other - well there isn't that much other. Medical/educational records of significance get filed immediately, cards get acknowledged and tossed (unless they are specially sentimental, in which case there's a file for that), forms or things that need to be dealt with go on that aforementioned pile (which if you have a lot of things or very little space you can get a thingy to keep it vertical and it will look nicer) and generally I deal with it later the same day after kids are in bed.

Quote:

Important papers- ie tax returns, school papers, - do I file alphabetically? Or by subject? Ie. If u have manuels for items do u keep them under the item itself or under 'm' for manuel? Does everyone in family have their own file folder ? Or under Ie if I need to file reports for my son (who is special needs so I have a lot!)

I file by categories and subcategories. Have a file pocket (that's the accordion thing that holds several file folders) for general categories such as medical, financial, memorabilia, etc. Within each I have separate file folders - financial has a folder for each year's tax forms, business receipts, stuff like that. Medical has a folder for each family member's records and another folder with insurance info. Memorabilia has a folder for each person's flat paper treasures. One child has a more complex educational/developmental record so that gets its own file entirely and soon may warrant sub-categorizing as well.

Quote:

Where do u keep important receipts? For how long? Does it have its own file folder?

Again, I keep as much as possible online. It is sooooo much easier to do a search on my email than to keep track of where the papers are! You can even scan/photo paper receipts into your email or evernote or dropbox to store them searchably as well. Then throw out the paper.