Chuck Swanberg . com

My wife and I have been striving towards living as minimally as possible. This has been an iterative process that will probably still take a few more years to complete. We dream of a household where each item serves a purpose; a finely orchestrated convergence of what we own and how we live. One of the more mundane chores in this effort is to bring order to the chaos of mail sorting and filing.

We have two goals for doing this. First, why let this additional clutter be part of our lives. Certainly we need to make sure that we pay the electricity bill, but why do we have to see the same catalogs pile up on the kitchen counter top week after week. Second, the old fashion file cabinet just takes up space. File cabinets are tough to keep organized. At best you might have a system, and at worst the system is no more than a box and random folders. However, I say that we can all do better. I am in the process of digitizing our records and creating a filing system on the computer. These records are automatically backed up to a data center in a different part of the country, safe from natural disaster, easy to organize, and I can browse or search them from any computer connected to the Internet. We are not finished with this journey yet, but I can already attest to the peace of mind that these solutions can bring to your life. I don’t stress over bills or worry about an IRS audit. Why should you?

Sorting Mail

First, consider the steps in the mail sorting life cycle.

1. Bring mail into house 
2. Add to pile
3. Sorting
4. Recycling
5. Shredding
6. Filing

Let’s face it, the most common reason that this process ends up messy is that we never seem to have the time when we bring the mail into the house. We need to recognize this and embrace it as an attribute of the system. We need to work around time by creating a process that is always organized even when there is no time. Imagine integrating a mail sorting station into your primary entrance or collection point of the house. When you are in a rush, you simply empty your stack of mail into the Inbox or the Unsorted section of the station. Recently I have read a few of Sarah Susanka’s Not So Big House books. She offers a few ideas for integrating these types of systems into your living space. The house we live in now makes it tough for us to integrate a mail sorting station. Our mailbox is near the side door which opens directly into our small kitchen. We have been investigating solutions, e.g. a small secretary desk or a wall mounted bill paying station. I’ll provide an update when we finally do work this out. Ideally, we want an integrated station for sorting, shredding, recycling, and bill paying. This will probably have to wait until we buy our next house though.

The System

Now that you have organized the clutter from your dining room table and have your mail sorting system in place consider your approach to filing important paper work. First, recognize that you don’t have to file everything. Buy a file cabinet organization system to help remove the guess work. I bought one of these (HOMEFILE: Financial Planning Organizer Kit) years ago and I recommend the same to you. Don’t stress about what to save and where to file it, simply follow the index in the system. My system recommends what to save, but more importantly what not to file in certain areas. It also recommends when to remove papers from your file for permanent archive or shredding.

Going Digital

But what about the computer? Unless you have a rock solid backup strategy then creating a digital file cabinet should not replace your real file cabinet. I do have a rock solid backup strategy, but I won’t be completely replacing my my real file cabinet just yet. I am headed in that direction though. I started this project out of the blue when my dad gave me his old scanner. It came with software called PaperPort (website) which lets you scan documents into folders as files that you can stack, organize, and search. I setup the folders to match the existing filing system that I use. I even scanned in the index cards to complete the digital metaphor. You could choose to integrate your scanning and filing station with your mail sorting station, but for me that isn’t very practical. Instead, I created a pre-filing station that we use to collect new papers that are ready to scan and file. This makes it easy to stay organized even when we don’t have the time time to keep up with new documents. Our pre-filing station is a wall mounted folder holder near the scanner and file cabinet. I keep manila folders with labels like “New Bills”, “New Insurance Records”, “New Pay stubs”, etc. Scanning the documents can seem like a chore at times, but once you get going it goes by fast.

A digital file cabinet is worth the extra effort. Just imagine the possibilities, look up information from your laptop while sitting in bed, compile all of your tax forms and receipts into a neat package to send to your CPA, and most importantly, feel secure that if disaster strikes you can recover your financial life easily.

Regular backup is critical to the success of your digital file cabinet. I am only doing this because I setup a dummy proof backup system that backs up documents constantly to servers on the Internet. Backup to local CD’s or DVD’s isn’t good enough to protect from disaster. Leaving a copy at a friend’s house is better, but still not good enough if a natural disaster were to strike. To really be safe, you want to backup your data to a secure data center in a different part of the country. I evaluated most of the services available a few months ago and tested a few of them. At this time, hands down, Carbonite is my recommendation. I recommend the service to all of my friends and family because it is so good at what it does. In short, it constantly backs up my data without involving me in configuration.