Filing cabinets are essential for any office that works with documents on a regular basis. Having your files spread out on desks and in work areas is a surefire way to get them lost, misplaced or to have them end up in the wrong hands. But when you purchase some quality used filing cabinets and storage bins from Systems Office Furniture in Houston, Texas, you can get your office organized and increase productivity since your employees won’t need to search for the documents they need each day since they will be in a filing cabinet with some type of system to make them easier to find.

When you file away your papers in a used filing cabinet that you purchase from Systems Office Furniture, your first priority should be ease of retrieval. That  means that you should come up with a system in your office that everybody is familiar with so they know how to search for the file or files that they need at any given time. There are many different types of organizational methods you can use when putting papers away in your filing cabinets. The most common method is to file them alphabetically, but you can also choose to file them according to date, frequency of use or you can come up with a color coding system. The choice is yours but it is essential that everybody who needs access to those files knows the system and how to find what they need quickly or your productivity is going to drop throughout your office.

Another great use of the space in your used filing cabinets is to have a “holding” area. This is for papers that you’re not sure what to do with and for papers that you are putting in there for future filing. This doesn’t mean that you should plan to file them several weeks later, but within a day or so or else the holding file is going to build up and become overwhelming. But having a holding file is ideal because it keeps those stacks of papers off of your desk and off the desk of your employees. These papers can clutter up your work area and decrease productivity dramatically. That’s why having a special section in your filing system for papers to be filed later is ideal. You can put these documents in there and then wait until you have a few extra minutes when you can file them then.

One of the things that many office managers tend to do is to keep documents much longer than they need to. Of course, there are some documents that you should keep for many years and even some that you should never throw away. But some documents only need to be kept for a few months or a year and if you are keeping them longer than that, you are simply taking up space in your used filing cabinets unnecessarily. You should go through your filing cabinets on a regular basis to get rid of those old documents. You can color code these files so you can determine which ones you can throw out at a glance. For instance, put a red sticker on all of the files that can never be thrown away. Then put a blue sticker on all of the files that you file this year and use a different color for different years. Then you can go through all the files with a blue sticker in one year and toss them if you aren’t required to keep them any longer. This will help you save space in your used filing cabinets so you don’t have to keep adding more of these used office storage units to your work space.

If you are hesitant about throwing away important documents regardless of their age, one thing you can do is to scan them and create a digital copy of them that you can store on your computer or your network. This is an ideal way to keep a large number of documents without taking up too much actual space in your work area.

When you shop for used filing cabinets in the Houston area, Systems Office Furniture is the best place for you to do your search. We offer a variety of used filing cabinets from some of the biggest names in the office furniture industry. We have several lines of filing cabinets from Steelcase, Herman Miller, Haworth and several other names you will probably recognize. And as a bonus, our used office furniture representatives are knowledgeable and friendly so they are ready to help you through the entire process. We can even help you come up with a proper filing system for your particular office. Contact our  offices today to see how we can help your office become more organized and efficient.