Sometimes, when it comes to ideas for organization or saving money, ideas are just that ideas. Â When you put them into play, they just sometimes don’t work out the way that you intend for them to. Â Such was the case recently for me.
I had this stellar idea to help organize all of our owners manuals for our electronics, toys, appliances – you name it! Â I thought that my idea would make it just so simple to find the booklets I needed when we had a question about our item. Â I spent money buying extra notebooks and plastic sleeves…….just to have it end up a colossal failure.
So, what did I try? Â Well, I thought that having a 3 ring binder with plastic sleeves and dividers would be a great way to organize my manuals. Â I figured notebooks on a shelf would make it so simple when I needed to refer to them. Â However, when I created my books, the plastic sleeves did not work. Â The books fell out of the top and were too heavy in many instance, to stay upright and not crease the plastic sleeves. Â Here is what I thought the book would look like:
It looks pretty – doesn’t it? Â Unfortunately, it did not work for me. Â However, it COULD work for you! Â It could be that we have far too many manuals to keep track of. Â It could be that the manuals we have are larger and heavy. Â If you decide to go ahead with this method to file your owner’s manuals, here are some divider sections that I had created for myself:
Camera
Cell Phone
Computer
Appliances
Furniture
Jewelry
Electronics
Video Games
Toys
Baby/Child Items
Since this did not work, I thought I’d share what actually does work for me. Â These are plastic boxes with hanging file folders in them. Â This is the method I’ve used for years and as the saying goes “if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it.” Â So, that is the method we returned to using and will continue to use from this point forward.
Between the labels on the folders and on the outside of the box – I can keep track of our manuals and still easily find them if they are needed. Â We keep them in the basement on a shelf, so we can easily reference them if we need to. Â This method works for us.
Am I disappointed I tried something new? Of course not! Â Failure is not only finding something doesn’t work – it is more often not even being willing to try something new. Â So don’t be afraid to give it a shot – you just will never know if something will work or if it won’t.