The Battle Against Paper

I am a very organized person.  My world functions best when everything has a place and everything is in its place.  When an organizational dilemna pops up in my home, I usually find a way to handle it quite quickly and efficiently.  However, I have fought the battle against paperwork for years and years and just recently won that battle.  For good, I believe.  Since my early days in college I have had a small two drawer filing cabinet that has lived with me, following me from apartment to apartment; home to home.  I would spend weekends sorting paperwork, organizing it into colorful folders, labeling those folders, only to have an unorganized pile of paperwork staring me down in a matter of weeks.  I could not win this battle.  Until I discovered the file box; what I believe to be one of the wonders of the world. 

The file boxes are designed to hold letter size hanging folders.  They come in a variety of colors and materials; I use sturdy cardboard ones and they work brilliantly.  The problem I always ran into by using the metal filing cabinet was that, first of all, it was ugly so it was always hidden in some back room or closet.  This made it inconvenient to use when I needed to file documents, so those documents slowly became piles of documents.  Secondly, the metal rods that held the folders never, ever, ever, ever stayed in place so as soon as you attempted to open a drawer, the folders fell over and got jammed.  After using a creative blend of inappropriate vocabulary, I would finally get the drawer open but the folders had to be taken out and put back in order.  To have a process that simply did not work and did not make my life easier just was not an option.  The fix to these issues is the file box.  They are attractive, so they can simply sit on a shelf for easy access and they are easily portable, so you can tote them to whatever area of the home you need to use them.  These also work great in the office where you can be confined to one or two small file drawers that can quickly become crammed and unmanageable. 

In my experience with the file boxes, I use one for Home and Auto documents, the other for Financial related documents.

I love using the ones that have the outside label holder so that you can use matching boxes and still distinguish between what each holds.  Within the boxes, you can use different colored file folders to distinguish between the categories.

I absolutely love this product.  They are durable, efficient, and actually attractive.  What use to take up valuable square footage in my office closet when housed in the attrocious metal filing cabinet now takes up one small shelf in my office.

The navy box shown in my picture above is the Bigso John Archive File Box which is available in a variety of colors from multiple online retailers.  You can find them here.  The khaki boxes I found at TJ Maxx.  The company name is Sheffield Home and are distributed by a company named Enchante Accessories, Inc however I could not find any of their products online. 

Please let me know of ways in which you have won the battle against paper in your home or office in the comments section.  And if you live in the Birmingham, Alabama area and could use my help in taming any organizational issue in your home, email me at TheNeatFreakOrganizer@gmail.com.