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[Patrick Rhone]

Having gone through the formerly mountainous region that was my physical Inbox today, I now have a lot of stuff to file. I have your basic "a few cabinets, a-z organized file structure" setup but have been finding that that is working less and less well for me.

The fact is, there are certain folders that I access more frequently than others. There are also folders for project support stuff that, while they are active, never get filed but stay on my desk (against my will to keep my desk tidy). Then there are the files I keep for "cold storage" reasons, 7 years of tax records for instance, that never really get used but I can throw away.

In the past year or so on my computer, I have been sorting my folders and files more and more by date modified. I think I want to move to some system more like that for my personal filing system. I am familiar with the Noguchi filing system, and while I don't see the need to go start cutting up envelopes, the idea of a time/relevance based filing system is very appealing to me (especially right now).

Has anyone tried such a filing system? Are there any other filing systems you have tried that worked out well?

[Brad Blackman]

I've got the basic A-Z files in 2 black filing cabinets. I'm gradually trying to prune them back (I should get rid of that folder with the self-promo pieces I did when I thought I was going to move to Tulsa 4 years ago...)

So to answer your question, no, I haven't tried anything else, but I do think I've gotten too granular with a lot of them. I've thought about clustering files of similar types together, such as all the appliances in one bucket folder or something, rather than having Freezer, Toaster, Stove, etc. scattered all over the place. Do you do anything like that?

[Shane McCarron]

I did something sort of crazy a year ago - I stopped filing. 

Now wait - bear with me...

I decided that all that paper was inconsistent with my minimalist approach to life, and that it was just way too hard to find anything when I wanted it.  So I configured the all-in-one printer toy to scan to a folder, where the folder is named by year and month.  Then every time anything came in that needed to be filed... I scanned it and shredded the original.  I also contacted each vendor that was sending me stuff via paper and told them to knock it off - I wanted electronic statements or nothing.  When I get an electronic statement via email, I save it in the year/month dated folder on the same hard drive the scanner is dumping into.

This worked well for a few months - then the scanner went crazy.  I have not gotten around to fixing it yet, but I plan to soon. Meanwhile, the crap to get scanned is piling up.  But the pile is small because almost everything I care about is electronic now.

The main shortcoming with this is that I didn't have the patience to set up the scanner to do OCR (optical character recognition) so the scanned stuff is in PNG format and using traditional hard-disk search stuff to find what you want isn't that great.  On the other hand, and this may be the last time you hear me say anything nice about Microsoft, the preview feature in folder browsing in Vista makes it pretty easy to tell what each scanned document is about...

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[Jamie Phelps]

It might be worth extolling the virtues of either the Fujitsu ScanSnap (spendy) or Evernote's OCR. If you could run your stuff through OCR (Acrobat Pro has this built-in.) you could put it into something like Yojimbo for safe keeping. If this is sensitive data, don't use Evernote because the encryption isn't robust enough yet.

[Scott Elias]

It might be worth extolling the virtues of either the Fujitsu ScanSnap (spendy) or Evernote's OCR. If you could run your stuff through OCR (Acrobat Pro has this built-in.) you could put it into something like Yojimbo for safe keeping. If this is sensitive data, don't use Evernote because the encryption isn't robust enough yet.

I've had my eye on the ScanSnap for a while, too. Doing doctoral research it's very nice to have everything electronically searchable...

[Rachel Murphy]

A few months ago I decided to go paperlight at home. Our 2 filing cabinets were overflowing and everything had become so disorganised I couldn't find anything. So I bought myself a ScanSnap for Christmas. Anything new needing filed is scanned into Yep and then shredded. I use Yep to tag everything so that it's easy to find again. Most of my documents are then moved into one big "Reference" folder on the hard drive.

There are of course still some occasional items that need kept in their original paper form. I have a nice new filing cabinet for those and have them all neatly labeled and filed alphabetically.

Gradually I'm scanning all the contents of the old two filing cabinets but it's taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. Mainly because it's so boring so I keep putting it off.

[Brad Blackman]

After reading Rachel's post, I'm starting to think the digital filing might not be a bad idea as long as you have a backup somewhere.

Oh, and if it's too boring, you might want to try doing what my wife does when she does the ironing: pop in a movie so the time goes a little faster.

[MarinaMartin]

I have a ScanSnap S510M. It is the best thing since sliced bread. No, it's better than sliced bread!

The OCR is superb quality and makes finding any file effortless.

I don't just drop stacks into the scanner, though - I label each PDF with the month, year, and category (i.e. 0608OfficeSupplies.pdf). This makes doing my taxes effortless and will make being audited effortless if that ever (knock wood) happens. Searching later on for keywords that might be related to tax write-offs doesn't sound like a fun way to spend my time.

I then backup my scanned documents with JungleDisk.

ScanSnap has a $50 rebate right now, so the scanner ends up being around $350. Absolutely worth the investment, if you can find some way to put those funds aside. I'd never, ever go back.

[Jason Echols]

A few months ago I decided to go paperlight at home. Our 2 filing cabinets were overflowing and everything had become so disorganised I couldn't find anything. So I bought myself a ScanSnap for Christmas. Anything new needing filed is scanned into Yep and then shredded. I use Yep to tag everything so that it's easy to find again. Most of my documents are then moved into one big "Reference" folder on the hard drive..

I love the idea of scanning files.  Space is an issue in my house.  So this can be a big help.

[MarinaMartin]

I use Yep to tag everything so that it's easy to find again.

I explored Yep but the tags seem to be proprietary to their software ... so if they don't continue to support it, all your tags are lost. (I was hoping it'd stick the tags in the "Notes" field of the document itself.)

I use OCR software with my scanned PDFs so I can scan for keywords within the documents themselves (i.e. "Comcast"). So long as PDFs don't disappear (unlikely), my data is safe and searchable.

[Rachel Murphy]

I explored Yep but the tags seem to be proprietary to their software ... so if they don't continue to support it, all your tags are lost.

In the preferences you can select Yep to read Spotlight comments as tags. I haven't tried it personally so I can't comment on how well it works.

[James Mallinson]

Probably won't help your situation but my filing system is split into alphabetical groups (A-to-E, F-to-K, etc) and within each I have specific categories (bills and car docs in A-to-E for instance). If I'm going to be using something regularly I simply don't file it or I jot down the important information (on a stickie note for instance) so I don't need to use the original. I also make sure to regularly process the contents and throw out stuff that's definitely not needed anymore. By keeping my filing system slim it's easier to work through.

[Nathan Hale]

I'm currently using Gscan2pdf, a Linux app that lets me scan my docs directly into multi-page PDF files, OCRing as I go. Slowly but surely, I'm getting rid of paper!

[wwaxwork]

I keep all my personal files in a folder/binder with plastic pockets in.  Each pocket holds only one type of file.  So say paid phone bills in one, bank statements in another, pets medical information in another for example.  When I put something in the pocket I move it to the front of the folder, so slowly the unused files move to the back.   If the folder gets too full I will sort them out earlier, if not once a year, after my taxes are all done, any information I want to carry over to the next year gets taken out and the whole folder gets popped into an archive box with information from the year before. 

This system works well if you don't generate mountains of paperwork, though when I ran my own bookshop I used the same system but broke the folders down into categories instead of having just the one folder.  I suppose its a bit like the Noguchi filing system you linked to only without the envelopes.

[shris]

Hi.

I have a giant steel monstrosity that's a holdover from when filing cabinets would literally last a lifetime. It's dark green, with art deco style handles.

In the top drawer, it has manuals for all the household devices, sorted into manila envelopes by category (electronics, major appliances, kitchen gadgets, etc.). These are rarely used, but when you want one it's pretty easy to find.

Second drawer is my household files--current year receipts, previous years tax submissions, a few work-related archive items, other odds and ends that don't get much use. Each year after taxes are filed, I pull out all of that year's receipts and stuff them in an envelope (or a few) to be stored in a water resistant (won't stand submersion, but it'll be fine if it's rained on or gets a foot or two of water around it) plastic box for the required number of years.

Third drawer is my collection of planner bits and pieces that aren't currently in use. Some old leather binders, some rolla/circa punched covers in various sizes, tab stock, etc. Most of it I'm just struggling to rationalize discarding, but I keep going back in there to pull out a piece now and then.

Bottom drawer consists entirely of genealogy research papers.

At my desk, I have a small file box that hasn't sprouted a real purpose yet. I think it's going to be 'intermediate' receipt and bill filing after I pay the stuff, not sure. The box fits under the desk, under the bottom shelf beneath the printer, so it's more conveniently located than the filing cabinet.

On my desk, I have some boring plastic inbox trays. In the bottom one, there's an elastic-plastic tabbed divider thing. Not sure what it's official name is, but I use it to hide the stuff that needs to be worked on. I've got bills to pay, regular receipts, medical receipts, coupons, to file, and other. So when a bill comes in, I stuff it into the Bills tab to sit until Thursday (at least, that's the idea). Medical receipts go into that tab so I can claim them on Flex spending (or whatever). Other receipts get stuffed in there until I decide it's time to file. After the bills get paid, they get stuck in the 'file' section until a filing.

The rest of my desk is a chaotic mess, mostly, but I try to keep the important papers corralled. I can't say it's a perfect system, I have too many 'intermediate' steps between action and filing. But I know where to look, anyway, and it does facilitate batch handling.

This isn't really filing 'by date' but I always know the newest stuff is in the inbox tray, and the oldest stuff is in the filing cabinet. The financial papers that go into the plastic box are labeled with the year so we know when to shred. It seems to have just enough space in it that every year when it's time to put something in, it won't fit unless we remove the oldest year at the same time.

The only scanning I've been doing this year is my kids' art. I'm waaaaay behind on that, I have a box on a bookshelf next to the file cabinet to collect the unscanned stuff, and the pile has grown well beyond the box.

The vast majority of my work stuff is electronic, so I have an elaborate system of topic-related folders to house that stuff. I do use the 'modified date' in folders that have a lot of stuff in them, or where I have several versions of the same file. But that's not my primary means of finding stuff. I use that *after* I've narrowed down the topic. I have a similar structure in my email so I don't have to think too hard about different sets of topics.

shris