Color Yourself Organized
Research in offices has shown that the use of color in filing projects
can reduce finding time by 33% or more!
Here are three ways
that color can help make you and everyone who uses your filing system
more productive:
-
Differentiate your categories. The most obvious advantage to
using color when you file is the inherent ability that color has to
divide filing categories. Lets say you have three types of customer
records to file: one for orders, one for deliveries and one for
invoices. If you put all the documents relating to orders in red
folders, all delivery paperwork in green folders and all the invoices
in yellow folders, chances are very good you wont ever mix them up
because youll always have a visual signal as to which should be filed
where.
-
Think in blocks. In a hanging filing system such as a
Pendaflex® system, the best way to color-code is by creating blocks of
color in each drawer. For example, if youre filing alphabetically, all
the A folders could be blue, all the Bs could be orange and all the Cs
could be green. By doing this, a continuous block of same-color
folders all containing documents relating to the same alpha section
will all be in the same place in the drawer. That makes it faster and
easier for your eye (and your hands) to go to specific sections in the
drawer. Pendaflex makes 13 colors in all, allowing you to create a
whole bunch of same-color blocks in your filing drawers!
-
Use reverse psychology. Another way to increase your filing
productivity is by using color folders that are reversible. Pendaflex®
color folders, for example, have a lighter shade of the outside color
on the inside of the folder. This allows you to reverse each folder
and provide yourself with twice the color-coding options!
