Working with binders

Does someone has a good way of dealing with physical papers?

I was thinking of having a binder per area, e.g. 20-29 Property. Inside I would put a ten-numbered index with each tab a different category, e.g. 21 Purchases and warranties.

But how do you deal with the labeling and grouping of the IDs? (I.e. the papers) For instance, there may be multiple receipts for a given purchase, and ideally they would be consistently labeled and somehow grouped without using staples. Preferably without having to write on the paper. Post-its feel unreliable.

Have you seen the home page in the last week? It’s been updated with a real-life example which uses boxes and folders.

Would ‘old skool’ manila folders work here? Or some other sort of per-ID divider?

Or if you want to use ring binders you could do a binder per category and use plastic sleeve inserts per ID? Depends how much you need to store and how much room you’ve got.

For purchases / receipts, I feel like you could benefit from the idea I used for my patterns: each one gets a number directly (instead of the number being attributed to a folder in which there will mostly be just one thing). When a given purchase has multiple receipts, use the same number and append letter as necessary. For example:

21.01 Computer
21.02a cool thing with multiple receipts
21.02b cool thing with multiple receipts
21.03 Garbage can

As for the physical thing, I used to mark the numbers directly on the item or on a sheet of paper that was then put in the same plastic “pocket”/ sheet with the item. If you keep these in a binder for example, that’s the easiest in my mind. You’d then have one plastic sheet by number and all different letters can go in the same (in the physical case, you might not actually need the letters ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I’m trying to keep up with the RSS feed, but this doesn’t ring a bell. I couldn’t find it in a quick look. Do you mind sharing a link?

A folder or plastic sleeve seems a little excessive to me. A single ID would one be one purchase, so it would only be a few papers at most. In most cases probably only a single slip.

Maybe I’ll just do a paper clip and a pre-printed label to keep it consistent and tidy. (Which is my main goal)

I think the first true discussion about it was through emails, but it’s mentioned here then : Individual Files don't get JD numbers, right? - #3 by johnnydecimal

Whatever works for you is fine! In the case of the patterns they can take quite some space and even the plastic sheet is sometimes very full ^^