2 Pocket Folders

Colored file folders may in fact be one of man’s greatest ever inventions in the field of organization.  Regardless of the kinds of folders you have or need, using different colored folders for different tasks, clients, business or other divisions can make your life a lot easier.

Almost all folders nowadays can come in different colored versions.  Whether you want or use simple light paper manilla folders, slash pocket folders, two pocket folders, presentation folders, haning folders, expanding file folders or any of the hundreds of other docuemtn storage options available, you can most likely get different colored versions of each one.

Once you have your colored folders, you need to decide how you’re going to classify them.  The otpions are virtually limitless and this will depend very much on your job or your business, but some possibilities include:

- Color coding according to the document type.  For this method, contracts would go in one color, invoices in another, receipts in another and so on.

- Coding by action required.  For this method, you would put all the documents that you need to follow up on or do something about in one color, everything that you’re waiting for someone else for something in a different color, everything that’s a simple reference document into a third color, and possibly more if you feel you need them.

- Coding by client or vendor.  This is quite self-explanatory, although you may not be able to have a different color for every client or vendor if you have many of them.  If this is the case, you might want to sort your clients or vendors into categories either by average order size, alphabetically, or by type (this is mainly for vendors).

- Coding by date.  Make your life easier by keeping everything from Q1 in red folders, Q2 in blue and so on.

There are countless other ways to organize your documents by color coding in colored file folders as well.  You need to plan and consider exactly how you can best make use of them, and if you manage to do that step correctly, you’ll find that color coding files can make a significant difference to your working life.