Questions To Ask Before Purchasing An Office File Cabinet
These days, we take a lot of things for granted. One of those simple items that many of us use on a regular basis is the office file cabinet. Do you ever wonder who invented some of the things we use each day? Did you know that it is believed the file cabinet was first invented in the year 1898? Before that time, offices were storing all of their papers horizontally and it was taking up way too much space. Someone finally came along and decided to find a way to store papers vertically and free up space. Then, they decided to start stacking these vertical file cabinets on top of each other and thus the file cabinet was officially invented!
Here are some considerations to think about when choosing an office file cabinet:
- What will you use the file cabinet for? For instance, does it need to have space for CD’s and DVD’s or just paperwork?
- Is there a particular color that you need to have to match your office décor?
- Do you want metal or wood?
- How much space do you need now, and how much space do you envision needing in the future?
- Have you measured the space where you will place the filing cabinet?
- How often will you need to access the contents of the cabinet? In other words, is it something you plan to use on a daily basis or is it a storage unit for papers you cannot throw out?
- Would you prefer a lateral style cabinet where the files go side to side instead of front to back? These are normally good for people who are going to use the cabinet on a daily basis because they can easily reach over and grab a file.
- What size are the files that you will store there? Will they be 8.5 x 11 or 8.5 x 14?
- How tall of a file cabinet do you need?
- Does your cabinet need to have a lock, and if so, what kind of lock does it need?
I bet you never realized how many questions you might have to ask yourself about purchasing an office file cabinet! However, by choosing the one that will fit your needs, you will be able to keep your business and your life a lot more organized in the long run. Just make sure that you keep your filing cabinet cleaned out on a regular basis. Some people end up sweeping everything from their desk into their file cabinet because they do not yet know what to do with the stuff. You do not want to use your file cabinet as a trash can. It is very easy to say “out of sight, out of mind” but this is not a good plan. Remember, your file cabinet should organize your business, but not allow you to procrastinate on getting things done that have been sitting on your desk for weeks or months!
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5 Steps to Organizing Your Desk Using An Office File Cabinet
If you are like me, and many other people out there, you have a tendency to allow paperwork to just pile up on your desk, eventually turning it into a huge mess where you can’t find anything. Or you can find things and say it is your filing system 
The best way to deal with all of these loose papers is to develop a good filing system. You can do this easily with an office file cabinet. Make sure the office file cabinet that you get fits your needs. You may need it to hold legal size documents, or maybe smaller things like postcards. Do you need extra drawers? Does it come with folders or do you have to go out and buy some? Is it big enough for everything you need?
1. Take a few file folders and label them with common types of papers you get, for example, time sheets, contracts, bills, invoices, etc.
2. Go through your papers on your desk one by one putting the papers in the appropriate folder. Throw out anything you do not need. Shred if you have to. If you get to a paper which is important but doesn’t belong in one of your folders, set it aside to deal with later.
3. Check the folders, see how full they are. If they cannot stand up anymore and are filled to the brim, consider dividing them up into multiples. There are various ways to do this including making your folders more specific- operations, human resources, etc. Or alphabetizing them (one is A-M, the next N-Z).
4. Go through the miscellaneous papers pile you now have. Try to make folders which make sense for them. If they are really unique and cannot fit in anywhere, make a miscellaneous folder. Just be sure to never fill this folder up too much or you’ll be looking in their forever for everything and it will be just as bad as your desk was!
5. Keep up with it. Daily, weekly or whenever your desk has become really messy go through the steps 2-5. This should keep your desk relatively clean if you do it often enough and if not clean, then at least you’ll be able to find things. Some people prefer to file things immediately after they receive them, to reduce mess on their desk and a bulky job to do later. You may choose to do this if you wish.
Look at your nice clean desk and congratulate yourself! Most people won’t bother doing this work in order to now have a nice clean workable workspace.
Organize Your Office File Cabinet
Are you a person who keeps a messy, disorganized mess of a desk? Don’t feel bad. There are many people out in the professional, working world who do the same thing! Some people are just not all that organized, but may be fabulous at whatever business they are involved in. It seems like some people are really regimented, organized and analytical while there is a whole other group of people who are creative and a big mess when it comes to keeping it all organized. No matter which of these categories you fall into, you can overcome the clutter using an office file cabinet.
Yes, we have all seen the regular black metal file cabinets for many, many years. It is true that these are nothing new or amazing, however are you making full use of yours? So many people have taken to just throwing extra paperwork in their file cabinets until they can “get to it” at some point in the future. The problem is that usually they never do get to it! It just starts to clutter up their file cabinet. And then what do they do? Clean it out? No! They often just keep purchasing more file cabinets thinking their business must be doing really great if they need all that room for their files.
Fortunately, there is an easy method for taking care of your office file cabinet fiasco. Follow this quick clean-up plan:
- Take EVERYTHING out of your file cabinet. This means everything! It should look as clean as the day you bought it.
- Go through every single piece or scrap of paper that you removed. It must now go into one of the following piles: Trash, Action, Later and Save.
- Trash means throw it out NOW. Action means it needs to have action taken on it right now. Later means that you still need to do something with it, but you cannot take action just yet. Save means it is something you cannot throw out for legal reasons such as for taxes or licensing requirements, for instance.
- Separate your file cabinet into the action areas, the later areas and the save areas. Alphabetize (or use whatever organizational method you need) each section.
- Each week, on the same day, review your action and later areas to see what needs to be moved. Have you taken the right action? Do one of your “later” files need to be moved up to the action area now?
By setting up your filing system this way, you will always be moving things around and creating new space for more files. This will allow you to bring more new business in because you will have space in your file cabinet and in your world for it to come to you. If you are always a disorganized mess, it is very hard to attract new business and opportunities. By removing the junk, you are making room for more profits!