| I'm married with two kids, and my wife and I run a SAAS business together. While we try to automate/digitise as much as we can, you just can't get away from paper - there's always masses of it. We've come up with a filing system that is low-touch and works for us. You need a proper filing cabinet with two drawers [1]. You then set up the document holder inserts like so: Top Drawer: Urgent, Important, and then months: Jan, Feb, March etc for two years Bottom Drawer: One section for each category you want. Just make them up as you go along - Mortgage, Car, <Kid 1> Health, <Kid 2> Health, etc etc. Don't overthink it - you can always just relabel them if you change your mind. We also colour code a bit, so e.g. company stuff is red and personal stuff is blue. The System: When receiving a new document (usually when opening the post, but obviously could come from school/doctor/whatever): 1) Is it something you need to act on? If so, put it in Urgent 2) Is it something you'll need imminently (e.g. a doctor's letter that you need to remember to take to an appointment in two weeks' time)? If so, put it in Important 3) Do you need to keep it? If so: 3a) Does it have an obvious and immediate home in one of the categories in the bottom drawer? If so, put it there
3b) Put it in the current month
4) Can you just bin it? If so, bin it.5) Not sure what to do? Just put it in the current month and move on with your life Once a day/week/whatever works for you: 1) Is there anything in urgent that you can act on? If so, do it. You'll likely then either post it, move it to Important, or put it in the current month Where the hell is that stupid letter / form / aargh I'm supposed to be leaving in five minutes 1) It should be in Important or Urgent 2) Look back through recent months, you'll probably find it there Once a year / once every two years (we do this in the gap between Christmas and New Year) 1) Go through all the months, and either move them to a category in the bottom drawer, or bin them. Because you only do The Big Chuck Out once a year, you can put the time into getting it professionally shredded. For this reason, I often only chuck proper rubbish (flyers, ads etc) and file everything else so it gets shredded. We had various combinations of ring binders / document wallets / etc etc and eventually they fill up or you run out of them and don't get around to buying more (plus they start getting bulky once you have a lot of stuff). The filing cabinets are a lump, but they hold a LOT of stuff. Since using it, going through post / being given forms is quick and painless, and we haven't lost anything. [1] https://www.bisleydirect.co.uk/bisley-bs2e-flush-front-filin... |