Comments on: Interview: Filing System from Scratch

By: Setting Up Filing Systems « Organised Thoughts

Setting Up Filing Systems « Organised Thoughts — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:43:54 +0000

[...] I was away Mark Shead and Productivity501 posted an interview in which I answered the question “Describe your paper filing system along with your advice for someone starting a filing system…“. As well as my response there are other great ideas, and you may find something for [...]

By: Matthew Cornell

Matthew Cornell — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:47:29 +0000

Great collection, Mark. Thanks for the invite, and the summary. As usual, great content on a wildly successful site.

By: The Balcony » Web Tip: ‘Creating a filing system from scratch’

The Balcony » Web Tip: ‘Creating a filing system from scratch’ — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:11:22 +0000

[...] more about how other people build their filing systems on Productivity501. On a side note Mark writes about his paperless experiment and how DEVONthink helps him filing [...]

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:08:13 +0000

Bad advice:
- minimize paper; ends to loosing something important
- use a logical system; what may seem logical to one, ends up being a mess to your subordinates or successors
- alphabetical filing; (yuk) similar content gets filed under different names.

Good advice:
- calendar based or numerical filing; also use a spreadsheet or a clipboard with lined paper to write down what you file.
- section per staff member; would probubly make it easy to find files if each employee was in charge of maintaining certain sections.
- buy a sturdy file cabinet; nothing worse than a broken drawer you can’t open or close all the way.
http://worldofbigbry.blogspot.com/

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:04:57 +0000

@John – Thanks for the encouragement.

@Regac – I agree. Organizational tools are only useful if they save you more time than they cost.

By: Regac

Regac — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:57:10 +0000

Hey,

the main problem with people is that they spend too much time and energy and money after all, into the research and the tools that you want to use, and too little into the actual organization.

My system is very simple, no fancy tools, not even a label maker:

One drawer, in the drawer large files that contain all the information for each of the clients: with a big name on the front cover. In the large files I add dividers between sections. Currently most used files on top.

That is it. I could not imagine doing some of the things that were mentioned here.

Great article though, helped my significant other.

Ow, and no one can realized how I can find anything in my system, and no it does not look messy: actually it is quite clean.

Cheers
Regac

By: John Trosko

John Trosko — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:02:48 +0000

Mark,

You’ve clearly put a lot of work into this interview series– and it ROCKS! I love reading what everyone has to say, all next to each other. There are so many ways to approach an issue. Great choices here.

John

By: Victor

Victor — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:09:00 +0000

Nice post. My problem isn’t organization (I use a simple alphabetically system and can find everything).

I never feel good about the files and folders themselves. I want them easy to see and grab and easy to neatly file away. The best system I have come up with is:

1) Nice Labeler that allows me to set a “manilla” preset so all of my labels are the same size and font with a circle around it. (Yes, I’m anal).

2) “Modified” hanging folders with staple at the bottom. Normal folders fall too far into normal hanging folders to clearly see the label. I pre-make a bunch of green hanging folders with a horizontal staple at the bottom of the folder to add height to my hanging folders so the tabs are easier to see. Works great. I read this in some GTD forum a long time ago.

Now I can quickly find and pull anything I file away. However, without this “hacking” it wouldn’t work as well. Why hasn’t someone created a better / easier / simpler paper filing system?