To start with, get all (really all!) documents and put them together in one big pile. When you get all the paperwork around the house in one place, don't be surprised, chances are, there will be lots of them! Your first task is to sort through that pile of papers, getting rid of the unnecessary and saving the necessary.
The first step is to go through all the papers, arranging them in three piles:
- Discard
- Scan and store on your computer
- Keep in paper form
The first step is simple; documents that have outlived their useful life go in the trash.I know people who prefer to keep every piece of paper, including cash receipts and certificates, but there is one significant disadvantage to this. One day, the document archive will grow to such a size, that you will spend too much time searching for the document you really need.
Many people think fearfully, “what if this might come in handy someday?” let's face it, sales receipts for appliances that have long outlived their useful life or a contract with a dentist you haven't gone to in a long time, can safely go in the trash.
Many financial, legal, and other documents have clear retention periods. I suggest checking with specialized websites, such as www.sekretariat.ru. Keep in mind that retention periods can change, so look for information for the current year, another option is to find out the retention period from the organization that issued the document.
The second step; discard of documents that are unlikely to be useful to you in paper form.This could include documents for paid loans, old documents for the tax or insurance company, and so on. The best way is to scan or take a picture of them, put them in a folder and store them on a removable drive or in the cloud.
The third step is valuable documents that are needed all the time or just need to be kept in paper form.For example, passports, valid contracts, house and car documents, marriage certificates, birth certificates, testaments, and so on. Let's talk about how to store them next.