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hi, everyone. i'm alejandra from alejandra.tv.and in this video, i'm going to show you how to organize or how i organize my files inmy filing cabinet. but first, if you're looking to get organizedyou can check out my free video series on my website, alejandra.tv. the link is below. ok. so one of the biggest problems i see withorganizing your files in filing cabinet is the filing cabinet is so jam-packed with somany papers like papers are just like hanging out and stuff and you can't find anythingbecause you haven't purged your filing cabinet in so long. and your labels are misleadingin your filing cabinet. so, i'm going to show you how i've avoided that problem and howmy filing cabinet is super organized, things
are easy to find and i just have exactly whati need and nothing more. ok. so, this is my whole filing cabinet. thereis a shelf and then there is the filing cabinet. so let me just quickly show you what's ontop here and then we'll get to the filing cabinet. so up here, i have my printer. so my printeris away from my desk because i feel like there is like no good place to put the printer onthe desk. so, what i've done here is the printer is plugged in but the actual cord, the usbcable that connects to the computer, hangs out up here in this little cord organizerright here. so it's out of the way. so whenever i need to print, i just come here and i literallyjust grab the cord and i plug it in and it's
like, i just print, it's so easy. so thatjust like hangs out up here. i'm just going to put that back. ok. then i have like two pictures of mojoand ed and i, to kind of like personalize my office a bit and just make it me sincei spend so much time here. all right. so the books up here, so one ofthe questions i get is, "why do you color code your books?" so honestly, it looks beautifulin my opinion. it's not very functional. in fact, it's like not functional at all unlessyou know the color of the spine of the book you need which like most people don't. butit just looks nice. and i'm not really accessing my books that often so it's not really a bigdeal if it's not very functional.
all right. so the binder is down here. soi love these binders. these are the better binders from staples. they come in all colorsand all different types and sizes and stuff. i'm actually going to do a better binder videocoming up soon. so, what i do here is i try and color codethe binder with like the category. so for example, the christmas binder is green becausechristmas is red and green. and then the recipe binder is yellow because i think of yellowwhen i think of the kitchen. but some of the other ones are not color coded by categorybecause i reuse the binders over and over and it's hard to maintain that way. so yeah,the binders are there. all right, so moving down to the filing cabinet.and actually, let me say one more thing before
we move on. one of the questions i get iswhat's the difference between putting your papers in binders versus putting the papersin the filing cabinet? and really, to me, i feel like it's a personal preference. iput my frequently accessed papers in binders because i feel like it's easier to grab abinder and find a piece of paper as opposed to reach into the filing cabinet find a fileand grab a piece of paper. so, things that are accessed more frequently in binders, lessfrequently, in the filing cabinet. and then also, i kind of break it up intopersonal and business. so, all my binders are mostly business-related papers. and thenthe whole filing cabinet is all personal-related papers.
all right. so let me show you exactly whatmy filing cabinet looks like. ok. so this is my filing cabinet. so everything is labeledfiles, files, files, files because it's all files. all right. so, this is it. i'm likeso excited to share this because i just feel like it looks so beautiful and all the colorspop and everything is just like so organized. so, let me just quickly run through and showyou what i do here. so first off, i use all letter-size folders instead of the legal size.for me, like i have a few documents that are legal-sized documents but i don't want toset up a whole legal system and waste space if the majority of the papers are letter.so i just don't keep legal papers in here. they are kept somewhere else.
all right. so let me just go through and tellyou what all these colors mean. so red is all of my permanent files. so it's thingsthat i'm never going to throw away like in my entire life. like never touch, never throwthis out. and then orange is things that are temporary.so there are papers that are coming in and then there are going out and being replacedwith more updated papers. like your health insurance policy, every year you get a newpolicy or you get an updated policy. you take the old one out and put the new one in. that'sorange. green over here is all of my financial-relatedpapers. so anything related to money goes in green.
and then light blue, it's like tax documentsthroughout the year. so like -- it's like tax papers you collect during the year andthen give to your accountant in the new year or use when you're filing your own taxes.so that goes in there. purple, in purple i just keep all these labelslike these labels come in a sheet of -- they come in sheets like this. and you kind ofjust like pick whatever label you are looking for. so, i just keep all the extra labelsright here in the filing cabinet. so when i do need to out a folder, the maintenanceof creating that folder is super easy. all things you need are right here. it's not likeyou're running somewhere else to out a folder because when you do that, it doesn't necessarilylike get done. and then you get behind. so
everything is right here. all right. and then brown back here is allof ed's real estate papers so we recently combined our filing cabinets so he has thewhole brown section for all these like real estate documents. ok. and then what i've done is i've used whitehanging file folders to kind of like make the colors on the file tabs pop a little bitmore. what i used to do is i used to color code the folders also. so like all the redsection would have red hanging file folders. so this is a hanging file folder. this wouldall be red. but i made a mistake of doing that and realized that the maintenance waslike so difficult with that. and i changed
them all to white to make it easier. so my biggest lesson learned is don't colorcode you folders , only color code the tabs and it's a lot easier that way. ok. so, that's what i do. and then what ido is take a white binder clip to kind of clip the folder together just like that forsome of the folders that are thicker with a lot of papers, just because it kind of containsthe papers more when they're clipped together. now, another question i get a lot of timesis what is the difference between an interior file folder and a hanging file folder? so,this is an interior file folder and this is a hanging file folder. now, what a lot ofpeople do is they put these interior file
folders inside the hanging file folder andyou have this sitting in your filing cabinet. now, there is nothing wrong with that. there'slike -- there is not really a right way to file. i don't do that because i don't likethese tabs sticking out because i feel like it covers the other tabs in the filing cabinet.and then i also feel like when there are so many folders inside, if like so many papersinside, the folder gets too full and it's too jammed and papers don't fit nicely inside.so i don't do that but it doesn't mean you don't have to do that. you can do that. instead, i just don't use these at all inmy filing cabinet. and then i just create separate hanging file folders for each category.so for example, like health records, this
is like my health record folder. and thenthis is ed's health record folder. so it's two separate folders just like that. and theni just put like my initials and his initials right there so i know whose folder is whose. ok. so that's the filing cabinet. now, wheni was setting this up, i realized that i have like space on the sides right here. so i waslike, "ok, maybe i'll just put things that i need to create other folders when it's timefor maintenance." so, i found these nice bins that just likefit so beautifully in the side of the cabinet. and this is where i have all of my extra tabsfor the file folders. i have a lot of extra ones just because of like when i was goingto people's homes and helping them organize
their filing cabinet i always had supplieson hand. so this kind of just like hangs out on the side right here just fits so perfectly.and then this one over here is the same thing. i have more labels and then i have a bag ofthe binder clips just like that for clipping the folders together. ok. so, as you can see, everything is organized,it's color-coded. you can find what you're looking for like very fast. and nothing elseis in the way. and so the last tip for you is to go through and periodically purge yourfiling cabinet. go through the folders, pull out things you don't need anymore, shred them,archive them if you do need them but go through it and make sure you're only keeping thingsthat you really need to keep.
so, is there something that i didn't sharethat you do in your filing cabinet that's really helpful for keeping it tidy and organized?if so, leave a comment below. or if this is your first time watching my organizing videos,you can subscribe to my youtube channel or check out my website, alejandra.tv for moretips on getting organized. thanks for watching and i'll see you soon.bye.