To Organize Papers, Tickle 'Em!

Where are all of your relevant papers? In a pile on a desk? On the bar? On the table? In your purse? Do you frequently have to search frantically for the kid's permission slip that you signed or for a work meeting agenda? You could find all of your needed papers in a flash if you only tickle them! [...]
Haha! I know what you thought of. I do not mean get down in the floor and literally tickle your papers! Although if you did do that, I would love to see a picture! Ha! Instead, I mean to put them in what is called a tickler file. There are several variations of tickler files and you can look them up but it just was not working for me. Basically you get manilla folders and label them 1-31 and then January-December. This gave you a total of 43 folders. It was to much for me to be portable with. So I decided to put my own twist on it.

First of all, I love binders because they are so portable. So I grabbed a binder that I had laying around. This one is a 1 inch, 3 ring binder that has a bendable front and back cover. As you can see it is see thru as well.

Then I purchased some double sided pocket dividers that you can get at Staples. I purchased enough so I would have at least 31 pockets. (Remember these are double sided, so each divider counts as two. The eight dividers give you 16 total. So you need two packs. If you want one for in general information to be stored in, such as phone number lists, or email addresses, then you will need to get more.)


I then labeled them 1 - 31. This put all of the odd dates on the right side and the even days on the left side.

Now time to see how this baby helps you with your papers! Lets say you have a meeting on the 13th of this month and with that you have an agenda you have printed off and some notes you want to take. Now you take those papers and put them in the divider labeled, "13". (Because that is the date of your meeting!)
Because the folders are big enough to hold a full sheet of paper, you do not have to whole punch anything! This is why I used the pocket dividers- so I did not have to carry around a hold punch and punch every piece of paper!

Do you get it? Just to be sure here is another example. You go to the mail box on the way home and you get your power bill which is due on the 15th of the month. You would put the bill in the 15th or if you paid your bills on Fridays, you could put the bill in the folder that corresponded to the next date you paid bills. One more- your kid has a field trip coming up and permission slips have to be turned in one week before the trip. You sign the paper and slip it into the folder of the date that you have to turn it in.

This makes it so easy to keep up with doing tasks! When you get up in the morning or even before you go to bed the night before, you open your tickler binder and see what papers need to be tended to for that day or the next day. Because this binder is so portable, it goes with me everywhere! I even keep a blank folder in the back to keep general papers in, like phone lists and addresses.

This simple system has made my life so much easier! Do you need help getting your papers in order? If so give this a try! I think that you will be pleased with the ease and portability!

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