How to Organize a Filing Cabinet

By following a few simple guidelines, you can create and organize a single drawer or an entire room of filing cabinets.

Steps

1. Generate your files. Be sure that they are all labeled in a uniform manner, such as all company names, or all person names.
2. Organize your files in alphabetical order, going from front to back of the drawer, top to bottom of the cabinet, and left to right in your filing system.
3. Leave room for future files. If you have enough files to fill 50% of a 4 drawer cabinet, don't fill the first 2 drawers completely; fill all 4 drawers half way. New files won't necessarily just go in the end, they'll go wherever the alphabet dictates.
4. Replace files in a timely manner. You'll need to take files out from time to time, but be sure that when you are done with the file, you put it back in its place soon. If you let them pile up outside of the organized system, you won't be able to find them later on.

Tips

• When creating a file for a person, follow the form of "LastName, FirstName" to ensure proper alphabitizing.
• To maintain proper filing cabinet order, keep Initials before whole words, such that "AZZ Inc." comes before "Abagaba Co."
• When putting labels onto files, put them in different parts of the different files so that the labels don't overlap and block each other.
• It helps to keep the inside of any particular file in some sort of order (chronological is the traditional way), so that when you find your file, you can find things inside that file as well.

Warnings

• Only open one cabinet drawer at a time to keep the cabinet stable. Opening more than one drawer at a time can tip the cabinet over (and on top of you).
• Since filing cabinets are full of paper (which is flammable), you may want to keep fire safety equipment near by.
• Try to avoid paper cuts.