Cabinet Caveats

Most people don’t realize it, but a file cabinet is a more intricate piece of office equipment than you might imagine. Indeed, it can save you plenty of time by neatly organizing your filed documents, while also protecting them inside closed drawers. However, file cabinet organization must also be done correctly to get the most out of it. Furthermore, it must be used safely to prevent injury to office workers.

To follow are five important guidelines to keep in mind concerning each file cabinet organization in your office:

Never overstuff a cabinet.
The temptation always seems to be to cram as much paperwork as possible into each drawer...but this is counter-productive because it makes individual papers much harder to retrieve, mainly because its very difficult to squeeze your fingers into a jammed-up filing drawer. As a general rule, leave a full four inches of free space in each drawer.

Open only one drawer at a time,
especially the upper drawers. Having several drawers open simultaneously, particularly when a filing cabinet is full, can cause the cabinet to tip over and possibly injure someone.

Label the contents of each file drawer on the outside front of the drawer. You don’t need to include the name of every file in the drawer on your label, just the key categories, which will significantly reduce the time it takes for everyone in your office to find a specific file.

When setting up a cabinet, be sure to leave enough space in front of the drawers for the drawers to open. This might sound like simple common sense, but it can be amazing how often this rule of thinking is ignored.

If your file drawers do not contain built-in rails for hanging filing, put in a frame specially designed to convert a standard filing cabinet organization system into a more efficient hanging system. Pendaflex® makes several different kinds of frames designed for this purpose.