What do filing and linens have in common? They both need to be organized and ordered in a certain way. Doing this will make them easy to find and get you what you need when you need it in a hurry. Read on to find out how to organize two important areas of your home.
Filing for Dummies
First of all, we can admit that there are way too many papers out there! The only way to maintain one’s sanity is to have some sort of filing system. This keeps your brain from having to work overtime just to stay afloat.
All of your papers need a home in one place. This may seem a daunting task, however, once you begin you can really start feeling better about things right away. You will need some tabbed files and colored folders to get started on this project.
How to Begin
Start with all of your papers that need filing. Gather them from the desk, the kitchen, the car and the far reaches of the house. You will find comfort in having all of your paper in one place.
Next, you divide the papers into piles, according to categories, such as finances, papers associated with the house, kids’ papers for school, etc. At this point, you are just generalizing.
After that, you will take each of these piles and further divide them, being more specific. For finances, make subcategories, like mortgage, car payments and credit card bills.
Credit card bills can be even further split into smaller categories like checking account and savings account. The best way to get organized is to be as specific as possible so that you don’t end up placing two things in a category together where one will be forgotten.
Categorize by Color
Each main category needs to be place in a colored folder. This will allow your brain to associate this color with this particular area of your filing system.
For instance, finances will be in the green folder, house papers in the red folder, kids’ papers in the yellow folder and so on. Whatever makes the most sense to you is what will work best.
Label Everything
Each folder needs a label to designate its category. Then, you will place the sub categories in files that will go into its coordinating folder.
There shouldn’t be any papers that don’t fit into one file or another. If this is the case, perhaps you don’t need this paper, or you can create a special folder for it.
Definitely avoid creating a ‘catch all’ folder or file that will house anything you stuff in there. This will re-create the problem you started with!
Putting it All Together
Once everything has been categorized and labeled, you are ready to alphabetize the folders and get them put away. A filing cabinet is the best way to store your new filing system and will keep all of your stored papers out of view.
Whenever you need to find an important document or put away a paid bill, you will know exactly where to look, and you can do it quickly and with ease.
Now that you can breathe a little easier, you can move onto the linen closet, which could use a system of its own. This is an area that needs to be straightened and kept that way to avoid the dreaded wrinkles that normally characterize a dirty sheet.
Keeping Things Neat
When you are organizing your linens, start by making sure that everything is neatly folded. There is nothing messier that unfolded, bunched up sheets.
Sheets that have been folded stack easier and maintain the nice, clean look that everyone love on their bed. I think one of the best feeling is being greeted by clean sheets as you get into bed.
Ordering your Sheets
It’s nice to look into the linen closet and be able to quickly find everything you need to get your sheets refreshed. When you are searching for a lone pillowcase for fifteen minutes, it can become rather frustrating!
There are two ways to sort your sheet sets. One is to keep all like sheets together, fitted sheets, flat sheets and pillowcases, each in their own pile.
The other way is to keep each individual set altogether, so that when making a bed, you can just grab the whole set in one grab, and you’re ready to go.
Keeping Things Organized
Once you have decided on how you will arrange your sheet sets, keep up this system by folding your clean sheets as soon as they come out of the drier. Your cabinet and your guests will thank you!
Check out this great video I did on Good Morning, Arizona, on how to fold the elusive fitted sheet, and see how to store your sheet sets to make them easy to find and get onto your bed in a snap.
See how Bridges and her team can help you with your organizing needs, any where in your home by visiting her website!