How We Organize Manuals and Warranties

I know many people would prefer to be digital with this, and I completely appreciate that. You do what works best for you and your family! Keeping hard copies is just my personal preference.

If it were left up to my husband, he would toss the manuals altogether and just look them up online if he ever needed them. I'm slowly proving their worth to him, though, as our box of manuals has come in handy a few times recently! Just the other day, he had to buy oil for our lawnmower and wasn't sure what type to buy. I had the manual out before he even got down to the garage to figure out the model number!

Moving on to how we actually organize these papers...

I would say our manuals and warranties are "semi-organized." 

They're organized because they all have a place. They live in one of two places, depending on the category of item they are for:

1. items that would come with us if we moved (strollers, tvs, lawnmower, etc.)

2. items that would remain with the house if we moved (hot water heater, dishwasher, etc.)

All the manuals and warranties for the items that would remain with the house are included in our house binder, which I go into more detail about in this post (Papers Specifically Related to Our House).

The manuals and warranties for the items that would come with us are in this file box. 

They're "semi-organized" because there is not much order to the box of manuals. The ones that fit in page protectors are in this binder. 

They're not in any specific order in the binder, simply because I didn't feel like it was necessary. As it is, I can easily flip though the pages to find the manual I need.

I did put sticky notes on the ones where it's not immediately clear what they're for.

The manuals that don't fit in page protectors are just in the box. Also, if the product came with extra parts, I put those in a bag with the manual.

I read somewhere once that paper management is the number one reason people hire professional organizers. I can understand why, as the steady stream of papers quickly pile up. 

I know I've said it before, but having a system for papers really simplifies so much - you know what to do with them as they come in and where to find them later on. And I find a pile of papers that are waiting to be filed a lot less stressful than a pile of papers with nowhere to go. 

Happy filing! 💛

xoxo

Erin