apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

At home I use color coded folders for better organization. Each category has it's own folder color and then I have separate staggered tabs for each sub-categorized folder. Since I know that Insurance is Yellow, Banking is Blue, Warranties are Red, etc., I can access a particular folder more quickly by just briefly glancing at my files.

For work, straight line filing is the way to go.

I've always straight-line filed. My assistant thought I was nuts, but went along with it. She then started doing her own files that way too!

It never occurred to me to straight line file! I'm going to do it when I get home!

my problem isn't where the tab is, it's what in the files. more to the point, not a problem I ever had with scanning, perhaps because I looked up the center and let the corners of my eye catch the tabs to either side.

I was once a staggered filer until I started dating a straight-line filer. Her family wouldn't accept a staggered filer, so I converted.
I've never looked back, except for that one time I got drunk at a conference and staggered my porta-files in my hotel room. It was a one time thing and it didn't mean anything.

superflyguy - Hah!

I had never even thought of straight-line filing until I became a professional organizer about four years ago and read about it, from Smead and others. Now all my files are straight line, and I suggest it to others.

Here is a good tip I learned in a filing system class I attended:

If you have a box of 1/3 cut file folders but want to use them to straight-line file, you can turn the left-tabbed (or right-tabbed, depending on which side you want to use) folders over so that they are "inside-out" and you will have created tabbed folders to use the opposite of the way they were manufactured. (I hope that makes sense). You can then use the center-tabbed files as dividers.

Other than those with serious OCD that probably need medication, who in the world would redo their whole set of files every time they add one, so the pattern doesn't change? You just accept it and continue on, knowing that eventually more new files will help balance it out. Good grief.

superflyguy: Even though the postings on filing will help me get organized (I was about to go through my files and purge) sometimes you need hyperbole to make it all come together. Well done.

i have the hardest time finding files in our stagger filed mail cart. it never even occurred to me that this was a possibility.

I used to color-code file folders but found it chaotic in appearance. I prefer visual serenity. Now, for new files, I use all gray file folders and hanging folders, sometimes color-coding the hanging folder tabs, which are all lined up on the left-hand side of the drawer. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find gray file folders with their tabs all centered.