Getting Organized With a Warranty and Manual Binder

I have no doubt in my mind that everyone would have amassed a considerably huge collection of manuals and warranties over the span of time.  Each time we purchase something, it invariably comes with at least one or two manuals or instruction booklets.  Where do you put all these manuals and documents?  If you don’t have a specific place for all these documents, don’t you think it’s a waste of time to search high and low for that warranty document or manual when you need it urgently?

I used to stack all the documents into a plastic basket and would sieve through them whenever I needed to look for information or warranty documents.  This process, while it looks and sounds good enough, became rather tedious as my collection of warranties and manuals kept on increasing.  In addition, because all the manuals and warranties were lumped together, I have to wade through a ton of documents before I got what I wanted.

So I was really happy when I stumbled on this fantastic idea on one (or more) of the organisational blogs I frequent.  The idea was complete genius and I wondered why I had not thought of it earlier.  It’s simple to implement, foolproof and a total dream for any OCD person. 🙂

Presenting…my very own Warranty & Manual Binder!

I used a simple 3-ring binder and wrapped the front with gift wrap, just to jazz it up a little.  You could achieve the same effect with a 2-ring binder too.

Inside, I used these fantastic creations: the poly-bag pouches.  These are spacious bags that close shut with velcro, and can store a ton of documents.

Most importantly, everything stays in the poly-bag pouch even when I move the binder around.  I got them from Amazon.com a couple of years ago, but I haven’t seen them in Malaysia though.  I suppose you could use similar-looking pouches and attach velcro to them if necessary.

I use one poly-bag pouch per category and I’ve decided on four main categories so far:

• Kitchen
• Gadgets
• Furniture
• Computer

That’s what the colorful labels you see represent. 🙂 Can you tell I get so excited when I talk about colorful labels?

To label these pouches, I use theses colorful label tags.  They have a sticky portion which I can easily attach to the poly-bag pouches.

This way, I can easily see and go to the correct category whenever I am looking for something.

So whenever I purchase something, I will first decide which category they fall under.  Then I will staple the purchase receipt to the warranty and drop it into the respective pouch.  If there are manuals for that product, they go in the pouch too.  With this system, I have gone from a haywire dump-everything-in-a-basket system to an organised binder system where I can sleep well, knowing that everything is where I need it to be should I need to locate it.

The beauty of this system is also that I can easily add categories and readjust the pouches when or if I need to.  You can of course change the categories to suit your own needs.  I’ve used this system for two years now and have not looked back since.

Have you organised your warranties and manuals? 🙂