Do You Have An Important Document Folder?
By Pamela Wong
Pamela is a Trained Professional Organizer based in Oakville, Ontario and is the owner of Zen N Organized. She helps homeowners and small business owners transform their homes and home offices into organized spaces. She has a practical, non-judgemental approach to organizing. Her objective is to create functional and harmonious spaces for her clients.
A few months ago, a gentleman contacted me for help. He was applying for Old Age Security and was surprised at how much information was needed to complete it. He needed to find his original birth certificate and his divorce papers as the application asked for the exact date the divorce was finalized, not just the year. He had no idea how to go about finding this information in his 40+ years’ accumulation of papers and documents.
This is where an important document folder comes in. Imagine the time and effort that can be spared if the documents were stored and saved in a proper location in the first place? He would have found all that he needed in a couple of minutes!
So what are some of these essential documents? Here’s a short list:
- Birth Certificate
- Passport
- Social Insurance Number/Card
- Marriage and divorce certificates
- Wills and power of attorney’s
- Deeds of your home
- Banking information*
- Insurance information*
- Emergency and next of kin contact information*
- Inventory of valuables*
Many of these documents are important to keep but not necessarily needed to be accessed every day. Ideally, it would be great if you can store them in a fire-proof cabinet under lock and key.
In my experience, clients either prefer to keep one large folder for everyone in the household, or have one folder per person. It doesn’t matter which way you choose, it all depends on what works for you. As long as you can retrieve the information easily, then it is a good way to go.
Luckily with my client I mentioned earlier, we were able to find everything that he needed in a reasonable amount of time. We created an important folder in his filing cabinet and contacted his adult children and let them know where the folder is in case of emergency. I had one happy client when it was all done! 🙂
Pam from Zen N Organized
*This information is especially important if you do not have an Emergency List in place. If you want to learn more about what needs to be included in an Emergency List, click here to find out: Do You Have An Emergency List?.
