File Cabinets Get Full

When’s the last time you went through every file in your file cabinet and purged what you no longer need? I was motivated to do so recently because I wanted to update my Afterlife file.

As you may recall, I set up an Afterlife file several years ago so that my loved ones would have the information they needed if I became incapacitated or died. You can see more about that process in my post Planning Your Afterlife.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to update the information in my Afterlife file. Included in that file are where the important documents can be found in our file cabinet. While updating the list of important documents, I decided to review EVERY folder. That led to a purge that I worked on sporadically until mid-February!

It also led to my handing over to my adult daughter many files that related to her upbringing and young adulthood. We sat down together and went through the files and she took home only what she considered important (or highly nostalgic). The rest went into the shredder.

My file cabinet is so spacious now that it’s a pleasure to file or retrieve something.  Some of the easy wins were papers that I have not looked at since I filed them away, or papers that have been superseded by other papers.

When prospective clients call me because they need help organizing paper, I always ask them if they have a file cabinet. The usual answer is “Yes, but it’s full”. The file cabinet in your home should not be just a historical vault. It’s hard to get a handle on managing your current paperwork if there’s no place where you can reliably store it.

So if it has been a while since you reviewed the contents of your file cabinet, dig in. Do only a few files at at time so that it doesn’t require a huge time commitment. You’ll be glad that you did.

My dog Brandy enjoyed keeping my papers warm while I purged!