Organizing Your Physical FFF - Set Up

This has been a long time coming. Thanks most graciously for your patience! This is what I started on my little "spring vacation" the other week.

When starting your physical Five Fat Files, all you really need is five file folders. Label each blank folder with one of your categories. Start collecting your information and place each piece in the designated folder. If you forget about collecting the info, all you'll have is five little folders sitting somewhere. But if you start filling them, those little guys will b-l-o-o-m.

When the folders start getting FAT, that's when you need to start forming a sub-category file system. To do that, you need to go through the folders and sort the info into sub-categories. I almost guarantee there will be a pattern to them. Take the biggest "sub" stacks and give them their own folder. If you don't have much of certain "sub" stack, put it back in the main folder. Label the folders "MAIN CATEGORY: sub-category". And when those really FAT files and sub-category folders start taking up floor space and filling up dormer windows, you need to do something serious. :grin:

This is my journey of handling "serious files." Pretty scary huh? Yeah, I feel that way too! lol

The covered Domino sugar box (picked up at Sam's Club) holds already filed FFF. I took them out of my downstairs desk so I have room to hold my magazine/writer's conference, menu planning, home managing and domestic stuff that I access all the time. All the rest of the info is sorted by main FFF type. So when I finally get to filing it, I know I'll be working with all one type of information at a time.

To start, I pulled out and emptied the second sugar box, then set it up as a hanging file folder container. I hope to do the filing nice and comfy sitting on the floor and then transfer the hanging folders to my filing cabinet across the room. Don't forget the garbage bag for the stuff you're pitching!

I chose to use hanging folders. I've had some experience with them and it just seemed better. It didn't hurt any that I found several 50 count boxes of hanging folders on clearance for $3! At a different time I found tri-cut manila folders on clearance as well. I'll be using them both.

Before I started creating labels for the folders, I reexamined my FFF category/sub-category list.

The original list is from setting up my virtual FFF (which after using it for almost a year, works GREAT!) I know that I have some things on the virtual list that I don't or won't have physically or it wouldn't make sense to make a folder for a physical file. I knew I would have to do some category shuffling because I learned to do filing from scratch. Trial and Error is my middle name. It is not an art form of me. Rich helped me shuffle and categorize which made the whole job easier! So, I made notes about what I would file together, not make a physical folder for and what would be relocated to another part of the house.

I decided early on in the evaluation that I would stick all the homeschool information in the homeschool room with the other books and material. And I would put my newly collected health info into the filing system Rich and I set up when we were actively consulting, speaking and writing about natural health. We already have a significant system in place. I had forgotten how much stuff we have, all filed by category and topic... Each of those folders contain enough info for at least one feature length article.

After shuffling and deciding about the categories, I started labeling. Julie Morgenstern in her book, Organizing from the Inside Out, strongly recommends filing with the tabs together. I agree. It really does make it easier to look back in a straight line instead of back and forth across the folders.

I did make an exception to that idea. I gave each FFF category it's own space going back. So when you see the tabs shift, at a glance, you know it's a different FFF category.

I also put the plastic tabs on the BACK of the hanging folder. So when I push a tab back to get info, I know what opens up is the info noted on the tab.

After I started, I realized the sugar box was not deep enough by 2 inches. bah. So I transferred the empty folders into my filing cabinet and finished creating the tabs. Don't they look handsome? On the far right, you'll notice five tabs all alone. Those mark my main FFF categories.

ta-dah!

During my category evaluation I realized that although I'll have a couple physical things in certain categories, I'll probably never have a lot in certain categories. I ran into this problem with my Creativity and Fun category. To solve that problem, I took regular manila folders, labeled them and put three of them in a hanging folder. This is where I made the exception of filing across. It works quite well with simple groups.

I also broke out sub tabs on specific information. For example I have a bunch of the Focus on Your Child magazine from Focus on the Family. I put the magazines together by date and age group, then created a tab and placed it a half step out from the main category, which in this case, is Children & Parenting.

That's where I'm at. I've filed some since I put the folders together, but I've been mostly happily sewing and mending. After all, cloth is sooo much nicer than paper!

I'll keep you posted as I get my loose files into the system. I'll also work on listing the changes I made from virtual to physical files. I'll give you updates and let you know what snags I run into as I go. Please feel free to leave your questions. I'm going to put together some Q&A posts, maybe next week.

There you go! Be inspired...