8 Critical Office Files You Must Have To Stay Productive Infographic

Critical Office Files You Must Have Infographic

Have you ever wondered what made a critical office file? Does your office overflow with piles? Do you have items within your office that seem to have wandered in from elsewhere? No matter how out of control your office may feel, it’s always a good time to purge your office files. This Critical Office Files Infographic shares what you absolutely must have to stay productive.

Explore the 8 Work Critical Office Files Infographic for  Productivity and Success!

1. Permanent/Vital Files

This segment of your files is essential. Vital (Permanent Files) includes all the things you must legally keep to establish yourself or your business in case of emergency or loss.

2. Rotating (Remove/Replace) Files

Rotating files include the information you must keep, and keep up to date. These files typically change cyclically by season, month, or year.

3. Active Action Files

Active or Action Files include those things that you must do often. Repeatable tasks include actions you need to take regularly. Common action files should be named with action verbs such as: Pay, Call, Follow-Up, Write, Read, etc.

4. Monthly/Weekly/Daily Files

These files should contain information and actions that happen daily, weekly, and monthly. These files help you work within a reasonable time horizon. Many people find organizing with a weekly planner that graphically lays out ideas along a timeline and contained within a week or month. Establishing Monthly, Weekly and Daily Files help you wrangle papers and tasks into chronological files.

It’s important to work within a reasonable time horizon. That’s why I recommend you focus your time on organizing with a weekly planner like this one. This organizing structure helps you pool papers into chronological files.

5. Tax Files

Everyone pays taxes. Your tax file should corral invoices, receipts, and expenses throughout the year. Gathering tax records make preparing for tax filing time easy because your file has all the records you need.

6. Archived Files

Archives should include anything you MUST have and hold onto for the long term. These files should include anything that establishes ownership, investments or deeds. Archives include those records you may need to establish ownership.

7. Resource Files

Establish resource files for any information you can’t replace easily. Also, resource files should be things you can find and refer to easily. Note, since nearly everything is web searchable, your resource files can be ruthlessly culled to only contain those resources you can’t find elsewhere.

8. Equipment, Supplies, Tools

You likely have many pieces of equipment to make your office productive. It’s a great idea to create a folder to ‘catch’ any system docs, warranties, and instructions as they come in with a new item. *NOTE* Most documentation is searchable so you may not need to keep most equipment documentation at all.

Read the full blog post here for even more information and guidance.