Is It That Time Already To Put Those Old Documents Away?

Many file drawers crunch up year after year with stale documents and old files that will never be retrieved again.  This dilemma is not solved by purchasing new file cabinets that take up valuable floor space.  It is solved by an annual clean-sweep within file cabinets.

National Archive Your Files Month in February encourages people to do just that. It signifies time to reach in those drawers and pull out those year-end documents for storage.

"Cleaning out old files in file drawers is as advantageous as cleaning out orphaned or unused files in computers, or spring-cleaning your house." according to Cyndi Seidler, an organizing expert, columnist and author of "Organize For Success."  She elaborated further that "It gives a breath of fresh air to once crammed, air-tight files."

Seidler offers these tips in doing a file clean-sweep:

1) Use storage boxes that are made to stack easily in a storage area or facility. 

2) Pull all year-end documents and files out of file cabinets that need to be retained for tax purposes. 

3) Pull all documents that are no longer active and needing further retrieval (i.e., old correspondence, marketing campaigns, meeting minutes, etc.).

4) Purge any documents or files that are no longer needed and do not need to be retained.

5) Documents can be pulled out of files and placed into large envelopes to reuse the file for the new year.

6) Items that are stored should be grouped by category, labeling each box with the category contents, the year, and a destruction date.

7) Refer to a records retention schedule for reference on what to keep and for what period (a general schedule is available at www.organized-living.com).