The Neat Company Forums

Does anybody have any organizing tips for filing with Neatworks?

The suggestion in the manual:

Folder type = file drawer
Folder Label = Hanging folder
Folder Name = manila folder

Is not working for me.  It seems so unmanageable without folder nesting or nested sorting.  I have 16 receipt folders right now and it is an eye sore trying to find the right folder.

Also, I can only sort by one column at a time.  So if I sort by Folder label, all the other columns are unsorted.  Can you imagine going into a file drawer (Folder Type) and every hanging folder (Folder label) is in random order every time you open the drawer?

At the moment, the only solution I can see is limiting the number of folders to under 10 and somehow sorting things out within the receipt/document folders.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,
Bruce

I'm in the same boat. Don't know if it's best practice, but my strategy is to keep folders to a minimum and use the metadata to sort (like Gmail). Here is my structure:So I wil have 2 receipt folders:

Receipt Folders

1) Personal expenses

2) Business expenses

 Then I use the Category field for differentiation.

 

Document Folders

1) Personal docs

2) Banking docs

a) Categories:

i.personal

ii. business

b) Document types:

i. statements

ii. deposit slips

iii.withdrawal slips

3) Investment A

4) Investment B

 

I'd also like to hear how other people are organizing their folders. I've learned from experience that nested folders are inefficient, and can cause confusion and duplicates. Instead, I try to use metadata and searches. Alex

I think I came up with something….

 

Still using the “file drawer”, “Hanging folder”, and “manila folder” concept that is visually easy to understand and familiar to most everyone, I reduced my receipt folder columns to Folder Name, Folder type, Total and Total tax.  I removed the Folder label column, but I could not remove Folder type column (oh well).  I fill the Folder Name column fields with text:

 

“file drawer, Hanging folder, manila folder, etc”

 

For example:

 

1. Exported, B, Deposits

2. Exported, B, General

3. Exported, B, Utilities

4. Exported, G General

5. Inbox, Deposits

6. Inbox, General

7. Medical, B, paid

8. Medical, B, Insurance

9. Medical, G, paid

….etc… you get the idea

 

Then I sort the folders by Folder Name.  Notice that the above example is a nested sort…All “Exported” is first, within Exported all the “B”s are first, etc…

 

The down side is that the Folder Name field is a 15 character maximum, so I need to be creative with fitting the descriptions in so they are short but understandable.

 

I hope this method is useful to others and that maybe it will spur some other ideas on how to make NW a little neater.  It’s not perfect, but it beats the heck out of that un-sorted mess I had before.

 

Thanks,

Bruce

 

PS.  I also used the “Tools=>personalize=>Folder Selection”  and set the Folder name to the top – so now I can find folders easier when I am in the NW Inbox.

 

 

Best practice according to David Allen (Getting Things Done) is  to use simple alphabetical sorting systems.