Clutter affects your health in several ways, from creating more stress to making it more difficult to concentrate. Often we think about our desks, drawers, and rooms when it comes to clutter. But when was the last time you looked at your disorganized files and documents?
Storing documents in a binder is one way to keep them safe and make them easily accessible. However, the more you collect in your binder, the harder it is to find what you need.
Have you ever thought about organizing your binder? Using tab dividers is a simple and fun way to organize your documents, recipes, files, and whatever else you keep stored. Here are some key tips that will help you maximize your binder storage.
The Different Types of Tab Dividers
There are a few different types and styles of tab dividers. One might work better for your needs than others, depending on if you plan on changing the tabs in the future. Here are some of the many options available to you.
Write-on Tabs
This style is often made of paper and attached to a divider sheet. You can write on the tab in pen or pencil. Write-on tabs may be attached to a plastic divider sheet. You can slip a cover inside the sheet for further customization and clarification.
The downside to this type is that you can only write on it once. Even if you use a pencil, eventually the tab will become hard to read.
Sometimes, write-on tabs are small pieces of paper that you can slip inside a plastic divider tab. You can swap these pieces of paper out when you want to change the name of your divider. There are also adhesive tabs where you write on the label and then stick it on a paper divider page.
The best use for write-on tabs is as a divider that you don’t plan to change. For instance, if you store your recipes in a binder, one label could read “chicken” or “entrees.”
Pre-labeled Dividers
If you know what you want the divider to say and you don’t want to write on it yourself, there are pre-labeled tabs. Commonly, this style is usually organized by letter, month, or number.
The benefit of pre-labeled dividers is that they look neat and clean. The tabs are easy to read and understand, making it easy to find what you need.
What are pre-labeled dividers best for? They work well as dividers for school subjects, recipes, quarterly reports, a list of contacts, addresses, and more.
Custom Tabs
Custom tabs are a subcategory of labeled dividers, except you can choose what you want the tab to say. This style looks very professional, and you get to choose the colors and text you want.
Check out https://tabshop.com/ to learn more about how to customize your tabs. You get to choose paper size, weight, and color as well as the tab color, size, position, print, and more.
The benefit of getting custom tabs is that you can customize everything. Choose to get binding reinforcement to prevent ripping the pages or get a logo printed on the cover divider.
Custom tabs have limitless uses, and they’re ideal for home use or business.
Do you need professional medical dividers for lab reports, nurse’s notes, and more? You can get them printed and arranged however you like, making it easy for doctors and staff to find what they need.
There are even legal index tabs, allowing you to carefully store and organize exhibits, will papers, and much more.
Color Tabs
You can use color to further customize your dividers. Usually, tabs come in a variety of colors such as blue, orange, red, green, and so on. However, you can also get tabs in a plain color like white or beige.
Choose whatever you find easiest to read and what you think will help keep you organized.
How to Organize Your Binder With Tab Dividers
Now that you know the different types, it’s time to talk about organizing your binder. There are many different ways to do this, and you can get creative when you combine cover pages with tabs.
Determine the Binder’s Purpose
Before you start organizing, clearly define the binder’s purpose. Once you do, it’ll be easy to organize it.
Here are some clever uses for binders that might inspire you:
- Calendars and events
- Coupon storage
- Recipes
- Craft patterns
- Lesson plans
- Business reports
- Invoices
- Contact lists
- Portfolios
- Family vacation ideas
- Budgets
- School subjects
- Take out menus
- Health records
- Meal planner
- Drink recipes
- Financial records
Binders have a variety of uses, and you may even own more than one. The way you organize one may not be ideal for the others, so don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works.
For instance, you might want one binder as an “Emergency” file. If you’re hiring a babysitter, for example, this could contain your child’s health information, allergies, what to do if something happens, and emergency contact numbers.
Another binder might be filled with your expense reports, quarterly reports, business goals, ongoing projects, invoices, and so on.
Remember to think about who will be using the binder if you’re not the only one. Make sure everyone that needs to access it knows where it is. All the tabs should be clear enough to read and easy to understand, so everyone can find what they need.
Separate by Category
Take everything you want to place in the binder and separate items by category. It might help to take everything out and separate items and files into piles. Think about what you want each tab to say.
This will vary depending on what you’re organizing. For instance, if you’re a small business, your binder tabs could say:
- Calendar
- To-do
- Projects
- Meetings
- Notes
- Expenses
- Budget
- Clients
- Training
- Policies
If you’re organizing a binder for school, you want the tabs to relate to your subjects and important information. Here are some ideas:
- Course title or subject (Biology, Algebra II, etc.)
- To-do or homework
- Tests and test prep
- Course handouts
- Course notes
Label Your Tabs
Once you know what you want to write on the binder tab dividers, start labeling them. If you have a lot of items to organize, or if the tab title is fairly long, you might want to get custom tabs printed. After all, legibility is key if you want to keep your files organized.
You might want to try experimenting with a few different types of tab dividers. If you find you don’t like the look of labels you have to write on yourself, you might choose to go with a custom-printed label.
Create Cover Pages
Creating tabs is just one part of binder organization. Cover pages can help you to organize your binder even further.
Much like binder tabs, there are different types of cover pages. It might be a plastic sheet where you can slide a piece of paper inside or a paper divider you can write on. There are many different ways you can customize this, but it should be clearly labeled.
For instance, the cover page might say “January” or “Intro to Computer Science.” If you’re organizing recipes, it could say “Chicken” or “Desserts.” You can print pages to slide inside plastic dividers as well.
This is your chance to get really creative! Print out pictures or draw on your cover page to make it unique, add your favorite quotes, make notes about what you have contained in this section, or whatever you wish.
You don’t have to go with the traditional look of a binder, either. Think outside the box, especially if your binder is used to store something creative. If it’s a craft binder with knitting patterns, you could separate sections with plastic zip pouches containing different-sized knitting needles.
Use Stickers
If you’re not using your binder for business or a professional setting, you can always use stickers to help you organize further. For example, a recipe binder could have stickers “gluten-free” or “vegan” to help you understand what the recipe is at a glance. You might want to use stars to indicate how much you like this recipe or how difficult it is to make.
You can also find binder organization tabs online with pre-printed categories if you don’t want to label the tabs yourself.
Create Subcategories
If one category isn’t specific enough, you can divide your binder using subcategories. One category could be “Savings,” while the subcategory could be “Vacation Funds.”
Try using different color tabs or different sized tabs to help you define subcategories at a glance. You can also separate them with divider sheets.
Start Organizing
We hope these tips gave you some ideas and inspiration on how to organize your documents, files, pictures, and more. Using tab dividers is a quick and easy way to organize your binder, so give it a try.
Check out some of the other sections on our blog for additional tips and inspirational advice.
