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   The Life-Changing Magic of Keeping a File Index

   Filing systems for personal, household files don’t get much love from
   people who write about household organizing. Most books dealing with
   household organization brush it off in a page or two, and it often
   comes down to something like this:

   “Throw out all your papers! Go electronic! With the six papers that are
   left over, file them alphabetically!”

   Marie Kondo, in her first book, advised people to dump most of their
   papers. (GASP!)

   Certainly, if you don’t keep papers, you won’t need an excellent filing
   system.

   But what if you do want to keep a lot of papers, AND find them quickly?

   Some people collect Lego sets, or porcelain tea cups. I create and
   collect documents, both paper and electronic. And I know I am not alone
   in this.

   I like being able to pull out papers like my handout for folding and
   cutting a six-pointed paper snowflake (I forget how to do this every
   year); or the brochure that came with my split mechanical gaming
   keyboard* that tells me how to reset the programming, after I mistype
   and inadvertently create a macro; or the gift passes to a cool local
   museum when friends visit.

   And I like being able to do that QUICKLY: go to my file cabinet, pull
   out the gift passes, done. No rummaging through piles or having to pay
   entrance fees for our guests because I couldn’t find the passes.

   This is where decent filing systems come in.

   I’ll be writing more about some ways to file paper reference materials
   (this IS after all, the Analog Office) but today I want to focus on:
     * the need
     * the genius
     * the beauty, and
     * the brilliance of a digital document that most people at home don’t
       keep: a file index.

   A file index is your [12]Where Is It? document for your files.

   It’s like a table of contents for your filing system.

Choose: Invest Predictable, Regular, Short Periods of Time?

Or, Lose: Long, Stressful, Unpredictable Periods of Time (And Money)?

   When you can’t find a paper, you lose an unpredictable amount of time
   running around and looking through piles, and you also lose sometimes
   significant amounts of money, because some papers are stand-ins for
   money (guest passes at the museum); or cost you time and money to
   replace (deeds, titles).

   A file index will take a little time to set up, and small amounts of
   predictable time to maintain. So it is a trade-off.

   But I would rather spend a little time to have zero anxiety about
   finding my papers when I want and need them.

   So I spend small, predictable amounts of time entering information into
   my filing index.

Why Filing Indexes Work So Well

   Say you have a paper policy from Zenith Auto Insurance, and say you
   want to file this alphabetically.

   Where does it go? What comes to mind for you, if you were looking for
   it? Where would you put it?

   File it under “Z” for Zenith? Or, “A” for Auto? Or maybe, “I” for
   Insurance?

   But maybe you think of it as car insurance.

   How about “C” for Car insurance?

   If you file it under “I” for insurance, do you keep your health
   insurance information in there too? Renter’s or homeowners insurance,
   does that go there too?

   You could; you could have a folder for, “Insurance, Car” and another
   folder for “Insurance, Health,” and another for, “Insurance, Renters.”
   Or, you could put health insurance under “H” or even “M” (medical!)…
   and so on, and so on… aaaargh….!

   Enter the file index.

   File indexes can be – and indeed of course used to be – analog, but I
   recommend using a digital format because:

   ✨ You want it to be searchable. ✨🎉

   It’s also a good idea to figure out how you will make your file index
   accessible to others.

   Because I want my husband to be able to find important household files,
   I print the file index out whenever I update it, so he can have a way
   to find things in case he can’t get into my computer. You could also
   share the document and keep it all online, or print out instructions
   for how to access it in case someone else needs to.

Make Your Own File Index

   For your file index, you can use a spreadsheet, a notes program, a
   single document – as long as it is searchable, and you have a way to
   share access if these are household files that someone else may need.

   It doesn’t matter where the insurance paper goes. It could be under any
   letter you want.

   It matters that you record your decision on a document that maps out
   where you put your files.

   Let’s say you decide that your Zenith Auto Insurance Policy goes under
   “C” for “Car Insurance.”

   So you record on the file index:

Location; Topic or General Description; Keywords

     * “Location” = the section of the physical file system you need to
       look in. What is it filed under? That’s your location. For an
       alphabetical file system, it will be a letter.
     * “Topic or General Description” = what you call the document; the
       first phrase that comes to mind when you are looking for the
       document: if you think of it as your car insurance policy, write
       “car insurance policy” here
     * Keywords = MAGIC!! when combined with ✨ search functions 🎉

   Filing can be frustrating because often we think of multiple terms for
   our files. (This happens a lot in homes, less for businesses with
   structured file naming conventions.)

   I might think of it as the “car insurance policy,” my husband might
   look for “Zenith.”

   So with keywords, you list any words that you might think of when
   looking for the document, that are not already named in your topic
   section, above. For this one, you might list: “Zenith, auto, policy,
   policies, automobile, registration, proof of insurance.”

   an example of a file index made from a spreadsheet, showing sample
   entries using columns for location, topic, and keyword, and a fourth
   column for digital file locations

   Next level: after keywords, if you have a digital file that corresponds
   to the paper one, put in the location for the digital file.

   Find it all, with file indexes.
     __________________________________________________________________

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   Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital
   systems? [15]Ask me a question.
     __________________________________________________________________

NOTES

   * I’m not a gamer, but my son recommended this split keyboard to me,
   and it is AWESOME. Shifting rainbow color backlighting, Cherry MX
   mechanical key switches (whatever that means, I’m reading from the
   brochure that I quickly and easily pulled from my files), but the best
   thing is that I no longer have wrist pain. Plus, the cat can hang out
   in the middle.

   cat stepping in the middle of a split keyboard
   *****
   Written on 31 May 2023

         © 2024 Anna Havron. All rights reserved. Website hosted by
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