Organization Her Way

I hope you will be able to relate to this situation.  We all try to get and remain organized to some extent.  In our house Kathy and I always had our set of files.  We kept them in a filing cabinet.  Kathy was always more organized that I was, so she had the task of setting up our files.  I did have a set of files for my business but those were my files and there was really no need for Kathy to get into those.  The subject of this article is the inherent problems with the family files.  I don’t think I ever successfully decoded my wife’s system.  We just thought of things differently.  Clearly no one is perfect and as near perfect as I thought Kathy was she did march to the beat of a different drum when it came to setting up her filing system.  Honestly I don’t know what her filing system was.  It became apparent when she would ask me to retrieve a document from one of the files and I would look for a while then tell her that I couldn’t find it.  “Fine, I will just get it myself”.  To her there shouldn’t have been a problem with me locating the file and the document she wanted.  Unfortunately I would open the file drawer and feel like I had just entered a different dimension.  Nothing seemed to make sense.  When she ask for a statement from one of the credit cards I didn’t know to look under C for credit cards, V for Visa, M for Mastercard, P for plastic, W for the name of the Bank or any number of other things.  I never seemed to look in the right place.  How about the registration for the family car.  F for family car, I for Intrigue, O for Oldsmobile, W for white, C for Car, A for automobile, R for registration…OMG!!   How about utilities, T for Turlock Irrigation, W for Water, G for Garbage, U for Utilities, T for Trash,  N for the name of the person you spoke to on the phone. She also had a file called Miscellaneous.  This is a catch all.  You never knew what you would find in that file.  It was always a bit of an adventure.   I am not going to beat this thing to death.  Our files were organized and I knew that Kathy would always be able to locate whatever we needed.  I guess I was the one with the problem.  I trust that you don’t experience any of this stuff when it comes to your own filing systems.  Other than the fact that most files are alphabetical, the secret lies in the details.  Maybe have a file that lists where things are located…a code for the files.  Then whoever sets it up will share their code and the uninitiated will be able to use this decoder file to find anything they need.  Hopefully Miscellaneous isn’t too large and offer too much of a challenge. Good luck and I hope you find what you are looking for.