How Genealogist Should Organize Their Documents, Cabinets

Is your office filing cabinet a chaos? If so, don’t worry because you are not alone. It is common for many genealogy research offices to have messy and disorganized filing cabinets. However, don’t take this as a validation that you can leave your cabinet in such state. Although having a messy filing cabinet is quite common, this does not mean you should not act on it. If you want to have an easier time finding the documents you need, then organizing your cabinet should be done right away.

If you’re a genealogy research professional, don’t wait for spring cleaning time before organizing your filing cabinet; the earlier you organize it is the better. However, before re-arranging the documents inside your cabinets, take time to read the proven effective tips below.

1. Move the cabinet if you need to – If moving the filing cabinet into another space in your office would make your workplace more spacious or make it more conducive for work, then do it. Survey the available spaces in your office to determine where to best put your filing cabinet. Make sure that the area where you will place the cabinet is accessible to people. Since typical filing cabinets in Sydney are heavy, getting help from another employee or maintenance personnel would be handy.

2. Remove documents that you no longer need – One of the main reasons why clutter is common in filing cabinets is that the users do not remove documents and paper works that are no longer necessary. A way to organize your cabinet best is to remove unnecessary documents from it. Aside from it will create more space inside the cabinet, organizing can be done much easier and faster.

3. Label all folders – Have you ever experienced wasting time looking for the document you need? It is frustrating to say the least. If you want to have an easier time finding the document you need, then labeling the documents’ folders will do the trick.

4. Categorize the documents – It is not uncommon for large offices to get hold of tons of paper documents. In order to have a better time looking for the documents you need from the filing cabinet, categorizing the documents can be of great help. You can categorize them based on company names, types of documents (receipts, contracts, bills, letters, etc.), and importance. The rule of thumb in organizing your office filing cabinets is: divide and conquer.

5. Use color coding – Another way of effectively organizing your filing cabinet is to use color coding. After categorizing the documents, you can use a particular color for each type of document. For example: store employee contracts on blue folders. By doing this, you will have an easier time finding the documents you need.

6. Arrange everything alphabetically – As a genealogy research employee, you’re managing a ton of document so it is imperative for you organize everything. Although this is already a give-away, some still fail to realize the importance of organizing all documents alphabetically. By doing this, you will save good amount of time distinguishing the files you need.

7. Consult with a professional organizer – If your filing cabinet is a complete mess and you cannot seem find a way to organize it without stressing about it too much, then you may want to consult with a professional organizer. A professional organizer can help you do the organizing much faster. He or she can also give you good tips on how to avoid messing your filing cabinet contents up again.

8. Invest on another cabinet – If your current filing cabinet lacks space for more documents, then it is time to invest on another one. You can easily find affordable filing cabinets since there are many retailers in the area.

There are more tips that could be added to above-mentioned, but they share the same concept: divide and conquer. The secret to organizing any filing cabinet is to do it the right way and you will find yourself enjoying it.