Digital Storage: Clearing Out The File Cabinet

When we moved from New York last year, we left our heavy-duty, old school, 4-drawer, metal file cabinet behind. We had that file cabinet for over a decade. We originally picked it up at a university surplus sale during our 2nd year of marriage. It was a good-looking piece of vintage office furniture. But I didn’t love the color — somewhere between taupe-y/pink and greyish/brown. So I carefully spray-painted it glossy black.

I used it regularly and it didn’t take us long to fill all four drawers. There were term papers, bank statements, college transcripts, GRE results, prescriptions for eyeglasses, birth certificates, photos, brochures on planting a garden, student loan papers, maps, ideas for Sunday School lessons, and on and on.

But when I started to pack up the house, I decided to leave that file cabinet (empty, of course), because I realized I hadn’t opened any of the file drawers for over two years. I’m not even kidding. As technology improved, and digital storage options expanded, we just didn’t need to keep up a traditional filing system anymore.

Now, bank statements come as an email. Checks are written via online banking. Eyeglass prescriptions are digital. So are photos. There’s a whole lot less paper coming into our home. And a whole lot less paper being filed away.

It’s not completely gone. We have a fireproof box storing things like important legal documents and passports. And there’s still a small file drawer where we keep things like notes from school. Some of our old tax documents are in a clear file box in the closet. But for the most part, our storage is digital now. It takes up a lot less space, both mentally and physically, and a lot less time. Which means more time for other worthy pursuits. Like laundry. And making peanut-butter sandwiches.

What about you? Do you use technology to cut down on filing and paperwork? Do you store info online? Do you have favorite storage devices? How do you handle backing up your storage? Or do you prefer to keep things on paper? Confession: recently, I’ve seen old school file cabinets used in room decor in really cool ways — which makes me totally wish I hadn’t left our old 4-drawer behind.

Do you like the industrial filing pieces above? They’re from UK shop, The Old Cinema.

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Dodge Caravan asked about my thoughts on technology — how it allows me to find some semblance of work/life balance, while raising a big family and working as well. I responded, “How much time do you have?” Then I told them I’d write up a series of 4 posts on the topic. This is post number four. Here are posts number one and number two and number three.

This Content Series is brought to you by Dodge Caravan, so technologically advanced your kids will be like ’011101110110100101101110.