Have you ever thought about the right way to manage your filing of personal information? If yes, congratulations! Have you actually implemented it for yourself? If yes, you are a rare specimen, almost like an endangered species.
For all those who admire these rare individuals, it’s worth considering the topic of filing of information. Filing doesn’t have to be tedious or even threatening. On the contrary, with good filing practices, life runs more smoothly. This should be enough motivation to maintain good filing practices. Even those who regularly maintain their filing are encouraged to think about improving it even more.
1. How are we introduced to filing of documents in life?
Does anyone remember a filing class in school or university? I’d be surprised if anyone could say yes.
At work, filing systems are maintained. That’s where we’re occupied with filing. Otherwise, filing is something you mostly learn through “self-education” over the course of your life.
a) Charlie and Barbie practice filing a bit
Filing is practiced, at best, in kindergarten and elementary school for physical documentation. You learn with parents, caregivers, and teachers how to file pictures or sort notebooks and books into different subjects.
From middle school onwards, filing becomes your own responsibility.
Later, hobbies are added. You collect and exchange articles and pictures. Here, it’s mostly about physical filing, but sometimes also digital filing.
b) Charles and Barbara suddenly need to know how to file documents
As teenagers and adults, you have to handle your first contracts and memberships. You’re responsible for concluding, executing, and filing them. Examples include monthly tickets, mobile contracts, rental agreements, apprenticeship contracts, employment contracts, purchase agreements, health insurance and private insurance.
Now the question arises whether you can organize your documentation into a usable, lasting order, sorting out the outdated information and filing the new information. Can you handle that some documentation is originally only available in physical form and other only in digital form and certain other information in both forms?
c) Filing tasks are continuously increasing as we grow elder
Official processes will find their way in our lives, such as registering at the local registry office, renewing an ID, and getting a driver’s license. IDs need to be kept in their original form, and digital copies should be maintained to provide proof in case of loss or for having them ready available for certain online applications.
You start building wealth, taking care of your pension plan. Suddenly you have digital and physical documents, and accounts with digital assets and policies (possibly in digital form). You need to consider how to file the documentation and the access data, in order to have them readily available, when you need them. There are password managers for this, but you might also want to keep certain important accesses in a filing system for safety reasons.
Then comes family, spouses, partners, children. Documents need to be kept for them too, sometimes joint documents for vacations, and sometimes individual documents for other family members. Simultaneously, others might need access to these documents.
d) Those who dedicate time to filing find practical solutions
If you recognize the importance of good filing, you’ll always approach the topic with the necessary attention and find a good filing system for digital copies, originals, and assets, access, keys, etc. This holds true even if you initially neglected it. Those who always file their documentation thoughtful will organically develop a filing system where they can find their documents.
2. Filing of documentation by life areas
For all of us who have never quite warmed up to filing, we want to propose a filing system. We want to give the discouraged hope that they too can manage filing and lead a happier life. Our filing system is based on the areas of life relevant to all of us.
a) What does filing of documentation by life areas mean?
Typical filing structures often sort folders by subject areas, like insurance, banks, pensions, electricity providers, energy providers, internet, and telephony.
In our view, this type of filing is too strongly oriented toward contract categories and let appear a number of areas where filing is also relevant something like afterthoughts. This may be for example true for documentation related to health, work, hobbies, associations, traffic with authorities, assets and debts.
It seems more sensible to divide the filing into areas of life, allowing us to effortlessly assign documentation to one of them and sustainably file documentation.
b) Proposed life areas
We propose the following life areas for filing:
- Status
- Health
- Housing
- Work, Education, School, Kindergarten
- Mobility
- Finances
- Contracts with Third Parties
- Friends, Hobbies, Vacations
- Ongoing Matters
c) Assigning documents to life areas
Documents can be assigned to each life area. For example, IDs, birth certificates, marriage contracts, and residence permits belong to the Status area.
Health documentation, medical reports, and X-rays belong to the Health area.
In the Mobility area, you’ll file car documents, including car insurance or the car lease agreement, and the purchase contract for a moped.
In the Finances area, you’ll file documentation on assets and debts, as well as documentation of financial security for old age.
Contracts with Third Parties include all contracts we conclude with service providers and sellers. Usually, only contracts with warranties or that need to be canceled are relevant here.
Ongoing Matters can be anything, such as organizing a project.
d) Filing your documents on Worklean
Feel free to explore our template for filing private documents. Register here, set up your workspace, and create your first project titled „Filing“ and call up the Private Affairs. You can now test filing on Worklean for free and without obligation. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at support@worklean.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
3. What awaits you in part 2?
We hope that we sensitized you for the issue of filing documentation. In Part 2, published in the week starting 17 June 2024, we will further explore the assignment of documents to life areas and we will provide you with a golden list of rulings for good filing. Until then, we wish you a great time.
The Worklean Team
