Once a year, you should schedule time to review your files and purge as much as possible, leaving room for next year’s papers. Consider these tips for maintaining a lean and accessible home filing system.

DETERMINE WHAT TO KEEP

As you sort through papers, ask yourself, “When will I really need this again?” “Can it be easily recreated or retrieved elsewhere?’ Don’t hang onto things unless you have a really good reason! Be ruthless – remember, 80% of the things you file will need get referred to again!

KEEP RECORDS RETENTION GUIDELINES IN MIND 

Your accountant, attorney, or professional organizer can tell you which documents you should keep for legal and tax purposes. Think in terms of what you would need to have to support your tax return. If there is no tax implication for a piece of paper on a current or past tax return, there is likely no purpose to hold onto the paper.  

SOME PAPERS CAN BE IMMEDIATELY TOSSED

Instruction manuals for products you no longer own, old research materials, previous drafts of letters, out-of-date magazine and articles, and receipts for items past their return date can be discarded.

STASH IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS IN A SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX or HOME SAFE

It is imperative that you stock your safety deposit box or home safe with the following papers (originals):

• adoption and citizenship papers
• passports
• birth, death, and marriage certificates
• deeds
• divorce decrees
•  insurance policy papers
• lease agreements and loan documents
• mortgage papers
• personal property appraisals (jewelry, collectibles)
• Social Security cards
• stock and bond certificates
• vehicle titles
• copies of wills and powers of attorney papers

And don’t forget to LOCK your home safe each time you access it. Most home safe’s are NOT fireproof if the lock is not engaged.

Setting up a home filing system can be a time-consuming chore, so I found a great ready-made filing system FILESOLUTIONS Home Filing System, that takes about an hour to set up, and it lasts a life-time. I’ll soon do a detailed review of this product, but for now, here’s more information about this essential ready-made filing system.

Originally posted 2010-02-06 18:18:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Then what happens when you receive a bill from the doctor’s office stating the insurance denied the charge and you owe the entire amount. A frantic search ensues to find the Dr. appointment receipt and EOB so you can resolve the error. 

Like most households, each month you receive a variety of documents having to do with your health status. From referrals, explanation of benefits to treatment instructions, the piles of medical papers add up. Multiply this by the number of family members in your household, and you can see how disorganized medical records can be a never-ending problem and a cause of great stress in the event of an emergency.

So what’s the solution? You need a system for managing your medical records. Without one, chances are you’ll never find the paper you need when you need it. For anyone who has experienced a medical emergency themselves or with a loved one, you know how critical it is to have quick access to organized medical records. I learned this first hand in 2008 when my mother suffered a stroke and heart attack! I needed to be able to immediately put my hands on her medical records, which included all medications she was taking. My mother didn’t have any system in place that I could refer to, and due to her stroke, she wasn’t able to communicate to me where I could find all of that information. More on this later.   

The Medical Organizer Kit is designed to solve that problem, and it certainly did for us. This kit is a ready-made system and 3-ring binder with dividers where you can store everything relating to your medical needs and bills, in order to keep this important information at your fingertips. 

When my mother suffered her heart attack and stroke (simultaneously), our world changed that day. As the only child living close to my mother (and also a single parent of two children), it became my role to coordinate everything related to her sudden illness ~ from Dr. appointments, multiple medications, referrals, tests, treatment, rehab. therapy, diagnoses, and more. The amount of new information that was coming at me daily was difficult to wrap your arms around. If you’ve ever experienced a sudden or serious illness with a child, parent or yourself, you know what I’m talking about.

Fortunately, I remembered the new Medical Organizer system that I had recently added to my Simplified Home e-store ~ I now had a reason to use it personally. I immediately tore open this Kit and began organizing all of my mother’s medical information in the binder by the categories it provides. There was a place for everything including a notepad for taking notes at each Doctor appointment and therapy, and sections for storing business cards. For the next six months during my mother’s slow recovery, her Medical Organizer binder became the “go-to” place for all of the medical information we needed at our fingertips on a daily basis. The Medical Organizer went with us to every therapy, doctor’s appointment and test. I felt in control again and felt gratified that I was able to provide the support my mother needed.

As my mother continued to recover and her memory became more reliable to her, the Medical Organizer was a God-send for her to track the history from the date of her stroke. She felt in control by having all of her medical history at her fingertips as she continued her therapy throughout this past year.

The moral of the story is to be proactive now for the inevitiable emergency. It will be critically important to be organized and in control during a situation that is really out of your control. Having The Medical Organizer kit at my fingertips helped me feel in control, so I could be there fully for my mother’s needs.

In case you’re wondering … by the grace of God, my mother has returned to 95% of her old life, feeling a renewed sense of gratitude and appreciation for life. As am I and all those who love her.

Originally posted 2009-01-14 12:22:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Filing is a big part of most any office, whether it be a medical, insurance, daily correspondence, ongoing projects, accounting, personal, fax copies, incoming mail, research items, reference lists and a multitude of other needed items-all dependent on the need of the office.

Here are some tips to keep your office organized:

1. Develop a consistent naming system for electronic copies so you or anyone in your absence can easily locate files, as needed.

2. Name your documents, spread sheets and presentations something easy to recall for immediate and future reference, and save them in folders with like documents.

3. Keep a folder for current projects in a convenient place, like in a desktop file box, somewhere you’re able to check it daily.

4. Keep a cabinet within reach and set aside time daily for filing anything you need in a hard copy form.

5. Label notebooks, shelves and cabinets so you can quickly and easily access important resources.

6. Maintain a master index, a key to all your computer documents that allows quick access in locating needed files.

7. Purge documents on a regular basis, so information is current and easy to find.

8. Dispose of duplicate information, keeping the final copies only, allowing for room to accommodate new work and projects to be filed.

9. Follow retention guidelines so you’ll know how long to keep each file.

10. Date papers so you can quickly determine if they are outdated-keeping the newest/most recent dated pages on top.

These tips can help you keep an organized filing system, both hard copies and electronic formats. With the multitude of paper created by everyone today, it’s best to switch over to an electronic system as much as possible. This will both eliminate the excessive need for physical space, as well as help the environment with eliminating over use of paper. When possible recycle purged files to help the environment. And the best part for everyone is less paper equals less hassle equals less stress, and the ability to be more efficient overall.

Originally posted 2011-03-05 17:41:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Another item that is easy to lose track of are all of the home improvements and repairs you have made to your home over the years. Home improvements need to be considered when you sell your home for calculating the sales price and then for calculating capital gains after the sale. So where do you go to store and then easily find these important records about your home?

To keep your house in tip-top shape, you need an organized system and home where this information lives for easy reference and retrival. I found a product titled the Home Maintenance Organizer that I now offer in The Simplified Home e-store (www.TheSimplifiedHome.net) and to my local clients. This home record organizing system provides a solution to, and a home for, all the home repair/maintenance clutter. The Home Maintenance Organizer is a binder where you can record and store all of the important information about your house, like window sizes, room dimensions, when you last had the furnace or refrigerator serviced, paint colors, and much more. This system also comes with an essential set of guidelines that will tell you what home repairs should be done and when.

The binder also has storage for ongoing projects that are happening around the house as well as places for important documents. The binder is an easy to carry with you system when shopping for window treatments, appliances, etc.

Another system to use for vital and archived home records, like home deed, mortgage, home title, etc. is our HomeFile Financial Planning Organizer Kit that is used in a file cabinet or filing box. This is a ready-made home filing system to hold all your vital personal and home records, most of which that you need to keep, but don’t need to access often.

Both these ready-made organizational systems solve the clutter problem of how and where to keep home maintenance records and will and make sure your biggest investment is always taken care of.

Originally posted 2009-02-07 13:23:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Find reliable contractors and doctors when you join Angie’s List today –
Use promo code LOCAL to save 15%.

********************

By Angie Hicks (Founder of Angie’s List)

About this time each year, professional organizer Janet Nusbaum sees an uptick in business. “Folks start to set new goals for the year, and getting organized is always in the top 10,” said Nusbaum. Owner of Simplified Spaces in Carmel. “They have an influx of new stuff that comes in during the holiday. Often, when I get the call, they’re feeling very overwhelmed, and they’re reaching out for some solutions.

The new year represents a fresh start and a chance to purge the old, unnecessary items in your life to free up valuable space and reduce clutter. Organizing a home office, garage or basement can be a family project that you do yourself or one in which you hire a professional like Nusbaum.

“The first step is to define what the purpose is of that space,” Nusbaum said. “If you see conflicting stuff there that doesn’t meet the purpose of that space, it needs to leave, pose of that space, it needs to leave, so all you have in that space are things that meet your vision for what you want to do (there).”

Some other things to consider before beginning a reorganization project:

• Make a list of the tasks you want to accomplish and prioritize by putting the tasks most important to you at the top of the list.
• Start small and allot an hour or two dedicated to one area to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
• Buy to replace, not to add.
• If it doesn’t fit or it’s out of fashion, donate it. If you’re reorganizing your wardrobe closet, hang pants long ways, rather than fold, which takes up twice the space. Use stacking hangers that can hold multiple garments. Organize your closets by color or by type.
• Keep only what is necessary to accommodate your family’s needs. Keep in mind that round containers take up more space than square containers.
• Purchase several large plastic storage bins with lids. Organize items according to their use and label the bins accordingly.

Nusbaum also recommends storing items closest to their point of use. “If your coffee maker is on the kitchen counter, it’s more efficient to store everything relating to making that cup of coffee right together,” she said. It saves you steps.”

Carmel resident and a Simplified Spaces client, Julie Bowen, is a self-proclaimed “neat freak” who has hired Janet to organize her home, garage and basement. Organizers can also help organize bills and other paperwork that often gets lost in the shuffle.

Bowen keeps systems in place so she, her husband and two children know where to find things when they need to put up and where they are when they need to use them.

“Our home is easier to maintain because everything has a home, Bowen said.

HOME OFFICE - AFTER

HOME OFFICE - BEFORE

Fritz Klooz, owner of Innovative Garages in Avon said his company can maximize garage space with overhead storage, cabinets and grid wall systems and pulley systems.  “The idea is to get everything up off the floor of the garage so you can power wash your garage or sweep your floor a lot easier, Klooz said.

You don’t have to throw away and create additional waste when you purge. An environmentally savvy organizer will look to recycle whenever possible. Also, donations to authorized charities can be used as a tax deduction.

Angie Hicks is an Indianapolis resident and founder of Angie’s List, a national provider of consumer ratings in more than 500 categories of service.

(Because they wrote this great article about my business, I’m returning the favor by passing on their 15% coupon code)

Find reliable contractors and doctors when you join Angie’s List today – Use promo code LOCAL to save 15%.

Originally posted 2010-05-07 12:26:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter