How to Organise Your Personal and Business Document Storage

30th June 2021

Organise Personal And Business Documents And Optimise Document Storage

Knowing how to organise your personal and business documents, plus how to use archive document storage is more important than most realise.

Imagine having an interview, then driving into a city with no traffic lights. Now imagine that all motorists have to force their way in the direction they desire. It is absolute chaos. The scenario is not any different when your business and personal files are mixed up. It gets cumbersome to find the right document. Therefore, it is imperative that you organise your documents to ensure quick retrieval and safety. Let us look at the main ways to organise your business and personal files – you can even consider business storage at Quick Self Storage Peterborough.

Sort by Name and Date

Names will help you to know which exact files you need while working. Sorting out the files by the name of the project or client allows you to quickly find the documents. Additionally, you need to arrange every single project by date.

Arrangement of files by name and date saves you the stress of finding misplaced files when you urgently require them.

Categorise Your Files

Information storage comes in many forms, such as data cartridges, optical disks, videotapes, audio clips, microfiche, computer disks, CDs, DVDs or hard copies. Data therein could be for personal or business use. Therefore, the first step is to sort the files into either business or private categories.

Secondly, you need to classify the various categories into groupings that make the most sense for you. For instance, you may consider financial, medical, property and private as classifications for personal files. On the other hand, employee, clients, compliance and projects could suffice for business files.

Decide What Stays

Once your files look a bit organised, it is time to determine what you require. First, separate the files that are still in use from those that you do not need at the moment. At this point, you may decide to shred any file that you will never need in the future. This action helps you to save on space. Also, you get to find out which documents you will take to a Storage Peterborough facility. Getting ruthless on documentation can really help you reduce the overflow of unnecessary paperwork, which makes the important stuff easier to track.

Secure Critical Documents in Safe Storage

Crucial documents such as house deeds, marriage papers, personal will, bonds and personal identifiable items such as credit cards should not be lying around. Moreover, sensitive business files such as financial records, customer data and legal agreements should be out of reach from unwanted persons. The best way to handle them is to place them in a storage facility. Storage Peterborough vaults and mobile self-storage offer a wonderful solution to information management. Our Darlington storage facility has the same service available too.

The Storage Peterborough vaults are made of cutting edge technology to maintain the quality and status of your documents. Moreover, it has a tracking system to allow you to keep an eye on your documentation while away. All these are measures to ensure your files are out of reach from malicious people. Finally, rest assured that you can retrieve the files at any time you want. Doing this can be exceptionally useful for small businesses short on storage space.

Maintain the System

The above measures help you to create a simple information management system for your files. However, to ensure that your documents are always organised, you must uphold similar organisation for your new files. Every so often enjoying the benefits of decluttering and bringing your organisation of documents is wise, things can go awry over time and taking time, reorganising as mentioned here, and following our other tips for decluttering can be highly beneficial. This can take a little discipline, the resulting effect on your mental health of decluttering and storing things effectively are very much worth it though.

Ask For Professional Advice From Storage Experts

Getting advice from professional storage experts can be exceptionally useful. While many people can set up rudimentary filing systems to get their documentation in order, most businesses hit a point where simple filing systems are unable to cope with the level of documentation being stored. Document storage is a big burden for many businesses. While much has moved online, or gone electronic in some fashion, paper records and hardcopies of documents are needed for many things. From tax purposes to proof of purchase for various things. Deeds of ownership, land records, and so much more must have paper copies. Getting these things into secure storage, so they can be safely preserved and out of the way of normal business is greatly worthwhile.

While going paperless is great for many things, rules of law, and other government legislation mean that paper copies of documentation will need to be storage for a great deal of time yet. Storing important documentation at home, or in the office, is becoming increasingly less practical. Space is becoming more of a premium than ever before, with most places having excessive clutter now.

All the more reason to actually have dedicated storage space for business documents and other documentation that must be held securely. By keeping these things in secure storage, you also reduce stress that can build in the form of anxiety about the safety of such documentation. Keeping documentation in dedicated business storage also helps mitigate the risk of fire damage, or flood damage even, should the worst happen on on your premises. The less documentation you are storing on site, and the more you have in off-site document storage, the more you can relax. Admittedly it does mean a short journey to access those documents when they are needed, though those times are relatively infrequent, and knowing they are safe is far more important than having them close to hand.

It is truly worth talking with storage experts about how business storage can benefit your business, and how the burden of document storage and archives can ease various business pressures. So get in contact with our Quick Self Storage team and see how we can help you.