Filing System: Before and After

To try to tame the  paperwork chaos in my apartment, I am creating a filing system. With any luck, I'll stop losing important documents. The paper situation intially looked something like this:

Eeek. Yes, those baskets are full. Yes, there are important papers in there. Yes, that black box is the start of my last failed attempt at getting my paperwork organized.

These are the headings of my new filing system:
- Housing & Utilities (Warranties/Manuals, Contracts)
-Personal (Medical, Lawyer, Hobbies, Important documents, Miscellaneous)
-Work (Current position, Previous position, Reference material, Certifications, Resume)
-Financial (Income tax, Banking, Insurance)

This is the end result (plus a big bag of paper for recycling):

It was a very lengthy, painful, and tedious process that I hope never to have to repeat again. Moving forward, my goal will be to touch every piece of paper coming into my apartment just once before it lands in its appropriate home (recycling, filing, or pinned to my bulletin board for ‘action’ items). I'm hoping that will be a better approach to controlling the paperwork chaos.