Easy Color Coding

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:

1. Differentiate your categories. The most obvious advantage to using color when you file is the inherent ability that color has to divide filing categories. Let's 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 won't ever mix them up because you'll always have a visual signal as to which should be filed where.
   
2. 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 you're 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!
   
3. 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!