Home Office: Filing Organization

[@bizybee65]

Thanks for sharing Jen! I pretty much follow the same filing system that you do...except I'm a little behind on the purging! One thing I do with my major receipts I save is make a copy of them and staple the original to it, only because the ink seems to disappear so quickly on the thermal paper that receipts come on these days. Look forward to more in this series.

[@NYVirgo1972]

I can't tell you how much I appreciate these inclusive home organizing videos on this channel! So inspiring. Now I NEED to color coordinate my office. lol

[@JackieMlechick]

I'm in the army and deployed to the middle east right now so I have no real use of watching your videos about organization right now, but I love watching them!! I look forward to your videos all the time!

[@craftytravelfrog]

Post 3: & (4) For those receipts that you do want to keep permanently, having them corralled in one container is a good idea, but for additional security consider getting a small-ish 4-hour rated fire safe (there is no such thing as a fire proof cabinet, but 4 hours should be sufficient in most cases). Odds are that you won't be home when there's a fire, and then those receipts are lost. Would also recommend scanning *tax relevant* receipts and storing them in another location.

[@MsAlexisMac]

Jen, I'm so jealous that you have the willpower to maintain your files to this degree! Thanks for sharing - cant wait for the rest of the series!!

[@lisbethemckay]

Thanks Jen, for taking the time to film this for us. Very much appreciated.

[@rediscoveringme50]

I was just thinking - a century ago people criticised women who worked! In fact, elderly women criticise me for working full time, thinking somehow I've neglected my children. 'In my day a woman's place was in the home......' etc. I wasn't happy doing that! I admire you Jen for being so happy and able to make this home and life what it is - perfect (as can be) for you! I'm amazed that ppl feel the need to criticise at all. Keep doing what you're doing Jen, a whole lot of us appreciate it!

[@kathleenwprince]

You have no idea how helpful this is! I'm still figuring out the best way to organize/label paperwork for my boyfriend and myself, and you display everything so beautifully! I wish I had that Pottery Barn filing cabinet, it's so lovely. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this series, Jen!

[@incitehope99]

When the paper/mail comes in how do u sort it prior to filing? Love the idea of clipping a years worth of papers & adding a label to the binder clip,definitely will incorporate that into my filing system.

[@WithWonder]

Generally by mid-January. Some more general winter things I leave up through February.

[@ucigirl06]

I'm excited to see your other videos. How do you organize your digital/printed photos?

[@Peskey2010]

I love the color coding Jen! My filing cabinet is a complete disaster and I'm going to redo it similar to yours. Thanks so much!

[@fiddlegirl71]

I have a similar filing system. Even though I have a lot less to keep up with, I really need to go through and color coordinate like you do. I think it would help me!

[@thespongepuppy]

I'm a college student, but the way you labeled the tops of the binder clips will definitely help me keep organized! Awesome!

[@Kristijo27]

I look forward to all your videos. I am even watching old ones I have not seen. Thanks for your time and hard work.

[@kimberleyr8952]

I'm in the middle of my own organising overhaul and am about to start on my office/studio/craft stuff, so this is so inspiring. Looking forward to the next instalment

[@olgamreal]

Dear Jen thank you for sharing your filing system. I got good ideas from you. As for how long to keep documents I go by the banking industry benchmark which is 7 years.

[@WithWonder]

I've kept all of my photos on my computer since I switched to digital cameras in 2002 or so. I use iPhoto and organize by month.

[@nicoledreibelbeis2192]

So excited for your office organization series! This is a great way to get started. I feel like updating my file organization is a really manageable first step!!

[@BriSayre]

Awesome video Jen will definitely use these ideas for my desk area! Great videos!

[@k10herrera]

This is perfect timing, I just relocated my home office over spring break and now I'm going to begin to reorganize it as well. I do a similar color coded filing system as well, but I like the categories you use, so that was a great new idea to me. My bills I keep in a bill management binder that I can take with me wherever in the house I happen to sit down and pay bills :)

[@lisbethemckay]

I do the same thing Meg. My favorite is seeing how I've changed my handwriting over the years. One time I actually drew hearts to dot my i's. But, one of the biggest was when I was able to use my old algebra notes to brush up and help my niece with hers; she thought her aunt was the bomb.

[@jessdsmith]

Great video! Could you show how you organize your family budget or keep track of your expenses?

[@GiGiKay11]

Very good video. So good to see you still get the paper statements. I do the same for two reasons. I just like getting it, plus we have a good friend that works for the USPS so I like to use the USPS whenever I can.

[@chetramirez]

Got excited to see an organizatiom video from you. Thanks and definitely looking forward to that desk organization.

[@erinmarie-m5x]

Wow! I use a similar filing system and now I know how I can improve and build on it. Thanks for posting. I need more helpful videos like this!

[@WithWonder]

I've been putting up the handmade cards I received from the holiday card exchanged b/c I like to display and rotate them. The wrapping paper was my winter wrap. It may be late March but it's still snowing here! I'm changing out the wrap this week to spring, but I'm going to keep displaying the holiday cards because they make me smile.

[@rediscoveringme50]

Jen, I loved seeing your filing system, just wish I could be so diligent about setting aside time each week to attend to it! I use Freedom Filer mainly as it was an easy way to set up and despite the fact I don't use half of their tabs I loved the 'system'. I purchased all different colour file folders for each section and it is working out well. It is a different system entirely to what I was used to but this is very easy. I love love love the cabinet! Don is a very lucky man! xxx

[@marypoppins627]

So happy to see your organizational videos again. Another job well done!

[@WithWonder]

When I was in school I used accordion style file folders to keep track of yearly schoolwork I wanted to hold onto as well as any other important health and finance paperwork.

[@desiree8179]

Hey Jen just curious when do you take the Christmas decor down?

[@ameves110able]

Nice series,thanks for sharing Jennifer!

[@1wendee0713]

WOW!!! That is so awesome!!! I just love the way u keep track of things and organize and just the way u think about it as a whole!! Gonna steal some of your ideas!! Lol!! Thanks!!

[@honmin8201]

Jen, your video are very well thought out and a quality product. Good job! What is the worst that would happen if you made record keeping a bit less structured. Any plans to scan important documents in the future? Experience has taught me having chronological health records on-line is important if you get sick while away from home.

[@TheGLOSSette]

QUESTION: Since Don will start posting vids on his own channel can he do an organization vid of his home office? If I remember correctly he has a room at home similar to the purpose of this craft/offfice room of yours. THANKS. I miss your organizational vids... glad for you to start up a series :)

[@WietskesLife]

Hi jen, I follow you for forever and never took the time to comment (I'm sorry) but I have to right now. I only recently starting paying my own bills and working a full time job at the moment, although I plan to go back to University soon and my -important- files have been everywhere! I've been thinking about how I should file them and then you came with this video. Exactly at the right moment! I am going to run to the store tomorrow and get a few things to start organizing like you do!

[@TheStones63]

Jen thanks for sharing your filing organization and being so inspiring in all your videos.

[@Arbloch1]

Can't wait to see more. I've been dying to see this series. Take care. Your awesome.

[@cdstapf]

Great video Jen. Thanks for getting me motivated to organize!

[@ShiariGirl]

You know you've made it when ghost accounts show up to trash you...keep up the good work Jen! This was helpful as I try to organize my office as well!

[@leighannmauk]

Great system. I trying to get my home office organized and this really helped! Thanks for taking the time to share!

[@sezzabop]

Very informative Jen and easily adaptable to more than one way of filing, I have felt like one day when I 'grow up' I will be organized like you at 29 I better get crackin on that!

[@WithWonder]

Paying bills & filing once a week helps me keep on top of everything. We use credit cards simply because of the rewards. We always pay our bills in full & on time. I personally wouldn't use a credit card unless I knew I could always pay the full amount when it's due.

[@mskelsasa]

Thanks Jen! I have been looking at getting a new system in place, I like the idea to have colour coded files easier to find things. You have to save documents for 7 years over here in the UK for Income Tax (not sure for the US) and holding on to your school information can come in handy as I have been making a new CV. I keep all that kind of information especially with you get extended warranties. Nice to know that I'm not the only one that keeps everything! LOL

[@scraobookfor2]

I 'm so excited about this Jen!! I was hoping you would do a video on filing!! Thank you so much for everything you do!!

[@southerncouponista]

Great tip to label the binder clips with the year! I would have never thought to do that. Thanks for sharing your system :)

[@WithWonder]

Well...we're not very good! It was an anniversary gift I gave to Don a few years back. We've been bad about playing them in the past year or so...

[@mashelly1000]

Hi! Keeping old bills really is a matter of preference. I never used to, because people always told me if I needed to refer to an old bill, the utility co. would help me out. But, having been in my house for over 22 years, there have been a few times when the bank deducted the wrong amount and having the utiltiy bill to compare w/my check or deduction was helpful. A small binder with labeled monthly tabs keeps all bills in place, for one year. When the year is over, toss them & start over.

[@brandysviolin]

Jen- thank you so much for this video. I am currently reorganizing my home and I have lots of paper and files and this has been so very helpful to me. Please, keep doing what you are doing...I appreciate every minute you devoted to it! Please, could you show us all how you organize all your warranty booklets and product guides? I used to keep them in a 3 ring binder in plastic protectors but its not working very well-would love your view!

[@shanlitaa]

Thank you Jen, a brilliant idea regarding 13 pocket accordion receipt file, I will be looking into buying something like this, I also need to look at doing a filing system, your videos will come in so useful, as for keeping some bills for seven years, I agree with you 100%, I have done this, a few years ago I had money stolen from my credit card, bank account, luckily I did have some of the paperwork to hand, I am getting married either Autumn 2014 or Spring 2015, so this will be so handy xxxx

[@WithWonder]

I sort the mail every day as soon as I bring it in into 3 piles - 1) recycle immediately, 2) bills & such to be taken up to the office, and 3) magazines and catalogues to put in my kitchen magazine bins. I put the things to be paid and filed in a desktop mail sorter in my office. I empty out the mail sorter every friday when I sit down to pay bills and do filing.

[@fiddlegirl71]

I love your office/craft room! Right now I have a craft room/office/dance studio/music room that I HAVE to keep organized or else I would not be able to move around!

[@bankergirl2416]

Jen being a banker I do tell my clients to save everything for at least minimum 5 years, you do it so neat I like the color coordination!

[@Zoe.Wolfchild]

I'm really looking forward to your desk tour, I'm always curious about the areas in which youtubers film from, thanks Jen for sharing this with us :)

[@MyAriaWeb]

Hi Jen, could you do how to organize your family pictures video? Thanks.

[@WithWonder]

When I was in high school & college and even in the first couple of years of our marriage I kept an extensive account of expenses using excel. After we'd been married for a couple of years I realized I didn't need to keep such specific expense records. We're very fortunate to have what we have now. If we were on a tighter budget I'd go back to recording expenses like I used to.

[@Julia_Dunn]

I love your videos! Thanks for posting! I also love your house and hope to have one just like it when I am older.

[@clnowak]

I keep important bills but the electric bill? or my phone bill? do those really need to be saved for years?

[@elizanner]

You mentioned that you file everything weekly. What sort of organization do you have for papers and things that accumulate throughout the week before you get a chance to file them??

[@13msfranklin]

Honestly, I need to improve my filing habits. I pay the bills & collect the paperwork in a bin in a kitchen drawer, then when that overflows, it goes into the filing cabinet. I really need to break that middle step, but so far I haven't been able to. My filing cabinet is half the size of yours, labeled files, not color coordinated, with the things I file most in front. I like your 7-year rule & think I might be able to get more space if I do some purging! :) Thanks for sharing!

[@SLPtoMD]

I'm soooo excited about this series!!! I've been hoping for another look at your Craft Room/ Home Office, and I'm pretty sure I actually requested an overview of your filing system a little while ago too!! So I was really happy to see this in my sub box :D Thanks for posting, Jen :)

[@cyndeg661]

So excited for this series!! Thanks Jen

[@nula14]

Hi Jen :-) I'm a relatively new subscriber and I've been watching your videos since the beginning of the year. I enjoy all your channels, but I love, love, love this one! You've been helping me so much with getting more organized. You seem like a lovely person, and you're always able to relax me. You actually make me look forward to organzing. So, thank you! Please keep on doing what you're doing. You're great at it :-)

[@aliandmelissanajafi7878]

What I would really like to see, since you were an art history major (and I'm assuming you dabble in paint), is some of your art work. If you do paint, what mediums do you enjoy using? What type of paintings catch your eye?

[@allycatangel1]

Honestly I use to keep past years bills for many years like you do but I ended up shredding everything and going to all on-line bill pay to save paper. It felt very freeing to get rid of that old stuff in my life.

[@maryjoyw1]

How do you keep all your nail polish bottles and shelves dust free? I find I love the sniffers with the long or short handles for cleaning collections of tiny little things that are contained, so they can't fall when you dust them. I love all your blog sites - I have always wanted to be super organized like you. It's great you have the right kinds of spaces to be able to implement all of your wonderful ideas. My house is large, but older, so storage ideas were different 35 years ago!

[@WithWonder]

He does have an office but it's quite messy. I let him have his office just how he likes it, which translates to piles and piles of stuff on the floor and shelves basically. That's why I like to be in charge of our bills and filing :)

[@FibroFitWarriors]

Hi Jen. I noticed you have a few credit cards. With so many people who are struggling with debt, do you think you could do a blog post or video on how you keep track of your expenses? You wouldn't have to say the credit card names, just credit card A is used for ___, credit card B is used for ____. And maybe how you remember to pay them all? I'm assuming that you have a method on how to make sure all of your debt is always paid, and maybe we could learn a thing or two from you :)

[@EEN63]

My system is similar to yours, however, I'm considering changing to the Freedom Filer Filing System. I'm a paper person too & keep everything for a MINIMUM of 7 years. This is necessary because I'm self-employed & write off expenses & a portion of my home for my home office. A percentage of utilities & home maintenance is deductible & I must keep all records as support documents should I ever get audited. Situations differ & everyone needs to do what works best & is right for them!

[@mcsnyder3]

You're great Jen! I love all your channels!

[@susanm7289]

Nice system Jen!! This definitely inspires me to be more organized. I can't wait for the rest of the series!! : )) One area that I would love for you to vlog about is how you keep your teeth so sparkling! Haha...random I know but I think you have a sparkling smile and I am always interested to know what to do to keep my teeth white and pretty.

[@jdelafosse04]

I'm very excited about this series! I neeeed help in this area! lol :)

[@tammyr9265]

Hi Jen, I'm Tammy ... I have a small section were I organize my folders just like you, but smaller and without labeling. But I have big folders where I place all my receipts, I label them with month and year and keep them during a year. The other personal information I don't have it well organized but watching your video gave me an excellent idea of labeling my folders so it can be more organized. Thanks for sharing. I'm always watching you :)

[@melissa1224jax]

We are pretty much paperless in my house. Lol forward to more videos in the series.

[@sweetTla]

Love this!!! Can't wait to see the next installment. I'm currently organizing my office so this is very inspiring. I really enjoy watching all of your videos so please keep them coming and ignore the haters!!!

[@ScammonPlace]

I've been looking forward to this series! Thanks so much for sharing your tips Jen! :)

[@cadenceoliviaheron]

I don't know why some viewers are being hard on you, you aren't hoarding -- you are being smart and even if you were hoarding SO what, it is YOUR life! not theirs! so please don't be discouraged by these terrible people that obviously have nothing nice to say

[@kelly4836]

Thanks for this video! Perfect timing as I'm about to begin organizing my home office as well. :) Do you have a process for scanning any documents so that you have an electronic version of them in case of fire or other disaster? TFS

[@Lynnfrost31]

I can't wait for your desktop organization!

[@shanlitaa]

Hi, it is up to the individual really how long they keep bills, I always keep phone and electric bills for 1 year and if you have not space for a cabinet use the accordion style filing folder, but with bank statements I am like Jen I keep these for a long time and glad that I did do due to someone stealing money from my credit card/ bank account, with receipts it is always wise to keep these for 1-2 years, as most items do have a 1-2 year warranty if they stop working or break xxxx

[@tammimarie]

Wouldn't that be approximately the same month though that the bank deducted the wrong amount? So keeping bills for a few months would suffice. My bank keeps statements online for 18 months. I save the PDFs to my hard drive (and backup).

[@fairygoddesse]

I keep my recipes for high ticket items as well but I also scan a copy and store the scan in a cloud storage like Evernote or Dropbox. The receipts are good if your camera or laptop is stolen but not good if there is a house fire that burns the recipes. My in-laws have a fire proof file cabinet that they keep important papers in for that reason.

[@PriannciaJ]

Thank you Jen, I'm starting a revamp of muy home office soon, this has helped me. Enjoy your day!! Thanks again.

[@SuperPVZFan221]

I wish I could be as motivated and together as you. You inspire me and then I turn around and look at my home and don't know where to start. Maybe you can make a video for people with this issue. How to get started from nothing. I need help. haha

[@aliandmelissanajafi7878]

Great minds think alike! Your filing system is color-coded like ours. :-) I color-code a lot of things because it makes things easy to find.

[@crazy4lexus350]

she have shown that office closet once.I believe she have a separate video for that closet plus I remember her showing what's in the bottom draws next to the sewing area.

[@shininstar44]

Oh my gosh Jen you're amazing! I WISH i was as organized as you!

[@mdlouwagie]

Thanks so much for sharing, Jen. Can't wait for the next video!

[@stellamonde]

I'm a student and I think that makes it hard to keep these kind of things organized. You don't have this much paperwork and documents yet, so having a filing cabinet would be excessive, but you still want to keep track of these things in a organized and logical way. I just have large ring binders with sections that I have to change around all the time because they never make sense! :D

[@WithWonder]

All photos from before 2002 are in albums by year. All photos from 2002 to now (when I went digital) are in iPhoto sorted by month and year.

[@tammimarie]

Very nice. I find I have not a lot to file anymore as I do all my bills paperless and online.

[@clnowak]

Oh wow- should I be keeping old bills? I've paying bills on my own for 3ish years now and have never kept any old statements

[@floralesque]

Omg @prettyneatliving - Jen I clicked into this as thought it was recent - you haven’t aged at all!! 😃

[@1tcoy]

What do you think are the pluses for using coloured files? I've often tossed up the pros and cons of coloured vs plain. It would mean re-doing my whole filing system. Is it worth it?

[@shanlitaa]

Yes, keep old statements, use an accordion type file system as Jen shows, even if you keep them for 1 year, especially bank statements or insurance paperwork, I knew of someone once who was paying a loan, whoever they were paying a loan to tried to say they were behind with their payments, luckily they had kept all the receipts xxxx

[@tiffanydhanks7206]

I love this video & it's perfect timing for me. I've been trying to figure out a office combo to file away my children's school stuff etc, along with the basics domestic management. Did you put together the pb desk? My spare room upstairs is becoming my office too. I've been worried about selecting furniture due to size & stairs

[@meldan526]

There are many alternatives to using filing cabinets for paperwork organization which is my point...Jen is an avid Container Store shopper, perhaps she's come across less expensive alternatives that she could share with others who are just beginning to accumulate important records, maybe those right out of college or newly weds, etc.. By the way, some records retention guidelines can vary by state...thanks for the feedback, always appreciate an intelligent retort.

[@soulh4838]

You should use the Freedom Filer Filing system!! It's self-purging and the most perfect system I've seen so far!!!

[@witzken1]

Wow, I never would have thought to label the spine of a binder clip like that. What a great idea!!

[@PurdyBear1]

Ex- professional office clerk here and this is a great system.Yes it is 7 years for most things and 11 years for others, ofcourse in America it will be different then the UK. The only add I would do is a master list of your files in the front of the drawer, so if you or Don are not around someone can find things just incase of emergency.For those who say you should go digital, sorry in an office it really doesn't work well, as lots want paper copies of things for legal purposes etc.