I’ve always been proud of how organized I am, you might even say I’ve been cocky about it. Paperwork comes into my house and it is immediately filed, most of the time. I brag that I can lay my hands on anything you want in under five minutes. I really thought my filing system was working. Probably because other than tax paperwork I haven’t needed anything in my filing cabinet in a while.
I have a system, a good system that made sense to me, other people might not understand it but I thought I did. Until Hailey’s accident and I found out that by using my own filing system nothing was where I could find it easily.
Apparently I file by whatever is on my mind at the time so who knows where anything is? I needed the loan paperwork to give to the insurance adjusters so they could fax over confirmation that the car is totaled. No problem, I told the adjuster, as soon as I get home I’ll call you with the information.
I went home and pulled out the file labeled “Hailey’s car”, thinking that is where the loan paperwork would be. Not there, just maintenance records. Next I looked under “Loans” that file was empty. This continued for quite some time until in desperation I started going through each file. I finally found the paperwork under “Hailey-legal.”
Don’t ask, I have no idea why it was in that file but there it was. Of course I didn’t find it until I called the insurance adjuster and asked him exactly what he needed and since it was just the account number, company name and phone number, I was able to get it online from my banking information.
Not quite as organized as I thought. So I’m refiling. Instead of doing what makes sense to me, I’m trying to file the way other people file. I’m also putting a piece of paper in other files to direct me. For instance, our health insurance paperwork is now in an insurance file but in the past I’ve keep it in the file with all my employment information so I put an index card in there that says -health insurance paperwork- look in insurance file.
I know that makes sense to other people and it probably sounds silly that I need those reminders, but I do. Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to find things quickly when I need them instead of several hours later.