Paper Tiger Blog

Paper Tiger Filing System Software can help you get organized in more than just paper files. Getting storage areas organized may seem even more of a daunting task than tackling your paper files, but it can be rewarding and help to declutter your life. It’s possible that you will have things in an attic, a garage, a basement, a storage shed on your property and some belongings in a rented storage unit. One of the biggest problems people have with their belongings is not even knowing what they have on hand or off site in a rented storage unit. So, if you are looking for a particular tool and cannot find it, you may end up buying another one and wasting money. People invest a good deal of money into certain things they may only use once in a while, but when you need it, you should be able to locate it.

Organizing Storage Areas on Your Property

The best thing to do for organized living is to get an idea of what you need access to on a regular basis. All those items you don’t want to keep in the house, or no longer have room for, can be stored in the basement, attic or storage building on your property, and documented with a filing system. Filing system software works great for this, because you can inventory and index what you actually have in the location you decide for storage, and what storage box or shelf the item is located. Then when you need to find an item, you can simply conduct a quick Google-like search in the software database and know exactly where it is located. This will save you countless hours because you won’t have to sift through everything before finding the needed item.

Box up smaller loose items and mark the box with a number. If you use a filing system software, you can keep track of what is in each of those boxes. You won’t have to sift through tons of boxes looking for that one particular type of screw if you know from your inventoried list which box number to find it in.

Keep items that you use the most close to the entry doors of the storage area and the rest can get packed in neatly. Take care to avoid storing anything that may not hold up well to weather issues, if possible. These types of items, or those you don’t use often but want to keep, will need to be stored in-house or can go to a climate-controlled offsite storage area.

Organizing Your Rental Storage Unit

Again, pack to the back those belongings you probably won’t need to get to very often. Bigger, bulkier and less useful things can be placed out of the way. The good thing with rental storage units is many of them are climate controlled and sealed off well enough to prevent problems from issues such as leaks and weather conditions. Then, those items you think you may actually want to gain access to on a somewhat regular basis can go up front.

The important part really is to use a filing system software to keep track of what you own, what you are storing and where it is being stored. Indexing your items into a filing system will ensure that you know exactly where these things are, before you end up buying another one because you can’t find the original.

Documentation of your belongings also helps other people who may need to gain access to things for you. If you want an organized life, organizing storage sheds is a great way to declutter your home and life.

How to Organize Your Storage Areas With Paper Tiger

There are so many uses for Paper Tiger because it is not just a filing system for your paper files, but can index any physical item. It would not be easy to give examples for everything, but we will give a couple of examples here that will hopefully give you the general idea. Just know that if you can imagine being able to put a number onto whatever type of item that you want to inventory or index, you can let your imagination run.

Example:  Different Colors of Paint Cans for Your House

1. You can name a Location in Paper Tiger ‘Paint’ and say you have 10 colors, so your Location capacity would be 10. In the description for the Location, you can input where you will store your paint, such as ‘Paint is stored in Basement on top shelf of Shelf 1 of 2′.
2. Print out labels from the database to be affixed to the paint cans.
3. Enter Item Name for each color of paint that you have, i.e., Baby Blue. Click on Add Item, and when you add an item, Paper Tiger will assign a number to that color.
4. Enter Keywords for each color, such as the room or item that this color is painted onto, i.e., baby’s room, lamp table in baby’s room
5. Match Label Numbers and Item Names: Make sure the label number you affix to each paint can matches the color that you input for the Item Name.

Example:  Boxes of Seasonal Decorations

1. You can name a Location in Paper Tiger ‘Decorations’ and say you have 5 boxes of seasonal decoration, so your Location capacity would be 5. In the description for the Location, you can input where you will store your boxes of decorations, such as ‘Decorations are stored in Basement on 2^nd from top shelf of Shelf 1 of 2′.
2. Print out labels from the database to be affixed to the 5 boxes.
3. Enter Item Name for each theme of decorations that you have, i.e., Christmas or Thanksgiving or Spring. Click on Add Item, and when you add an item, Paper Tiger will assign a number to that color. In this example, box #1 item name might be Spring, box #2 item name might be Thanksgiving, box #3 item name might be Christmas, etc.
4. Enter Keywords for each theme, such as in box #1, your Spring items might include a spring flag, bunnies, tablecloth and picnic items
5. Match Label Numbers and Item Names: Make sure the label number you affix to each box matches the decoration theme that you input for the Item Name.

See other great ideas from our Not Just For Filing Paper webpage!

Tell Us in the Comment Section Below…What/How Do You Uniquely Organize With Paper Tiger Filing System Software?