I don’t know where this idea came from.

Possibly from frustration with not being able to find important documents I needed quickly.

I tend to keep all my documents and things in A4 boxes. There’s always that situation where I need to lay my hands on a recent utility bill or something and I can’t find it anywhere. Avoiding the fact that really I just needed to sort through everything and shred loads of stuff I decided to create this file.

As I had an A5 Original in Dark Aqua not being used I figured this would be perfect.

I deliberately wanted A5 as I wanted something I could keep on my bookshelf and easily refer to. An A4 file wouldn’t have felt much better than my A4 sized boxes. Plus, I don’t have that many documents that I need to keep to hand.

The set up

I kept things simple in here. Just a paperclip and some Post Its for any quick notes. Even the pen a just a nice simple ballpoint.

I love my dividers though. These were actually made with leftover Orla Kiely gift wrap. Ed had some leftover from my birthday and knew I’d have a use for them! I just cut them out with my Silhouette, laminated them, and used my label maker to create the titles.

Sections

The sections are:
Goals and health
Money
Home
Work
Car

The goals and health section was put together when I was still trying to work out my goal tracking methods for 2017. As this has now moved into my bullet journal and personal Filofax nude this can just be changed to health now. In this section I keep a perpetual month on two pages calendar as it’s just handy to have along with some note pages. Then I have the A5 Filofax plastic pocket that came with the planner. In the pocket I keep anything health related – my last optical prescription, NHS card etc. Anything I may need to reference at any point.

Aside from the calendar, the rest of the sections contain the same as the first – notes pages and a pocket that fits folder A4 paper. I created these pockets using thick scrapbook paper. To make them I simply created an extra long dashboard and folded over the extra bit and secured with double sized tape. If you’d like a little how to on how to make these, let me know in the comments below and I’ll definitely make a follow up!

Inside each section I just put anything important relating that area. Account details, latest statements or services. Then once I get a new one, that goes in the file and the old one goes into my A4 box file.

Overall

It’s a really simple set up but it’s so helpful. Knowing that I have somewhere easy to refer for important details has been really handy. Particularly come tax return time!

Do you have something similar? Let me know in the comments below as I’d love to see other set ups!

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