Mon 31 Oct 2011
Control Panel Methods – Binders
Posted by amanda under Control Panel
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You can find the rest of this series here.
Like I mentioned earlier – and as I’m sure most of you are already aware – this is the style used by Flylady and CEO. From several small ones to one large one, binders are convenient in that they are ultimately customizable. You decide what tabs go where and what goes behind them, adding, removing and rearranging as you please. Office supply stores are rife with options for binders, tabs, paper, sheet protectors, etc. My personal preferences: view binders (those with clear plastic covers over whatever color the binder itself is so you can insert cover sheets, pictures, titles, whatever), college-rule lined paper if not using print-outs, hard plastic tabs for durability (but only if not using sheet protectors), and good quality clear plastic top-loading sheet protectors.
Binders come in many sizes, from less than an inch to 3 or more inches. When you decide what size to get, you need to think about not only what is going into it (and how much paper that’s going to be), but also where you will be using it. A 4 inch binder containing several pounds of paper will not be very portable and should ideally only contain information that is occasionally referenced in one area. In contrast, a ½ inch binder can easily be carried around the house with you as you work, or you might even want to take it with you on errands. But, if you end up with an overstuffed binder, or one intended to be portable that’s too bulky to carry around, rethink what actually has to be in the book and what might be just as well (or better) served by another location.
If you use a binder as part of your Control Panel, you’ll probably encounter the question of tabs/dividers. If you have more than one section in your binder, you’ll need some way to differentiate. There are a few methods. One is to use a heavier paper for divider pages, with or without stick-on tabs. Or commercially made tab dividers, which in my experience come in three general types. Those you write directly on, those you slide little pieces of paper that you’ve written on into, and those which stay the same and you print an index page for the beginning of your notebook to tell you what’s where. I’ve used ‘em all, and I’m not terribly fond of any of them anymore, honestly. The primary difficulty comes when using them in conjunction with sheet protectors – they don’t extend beyond the plastic sleeves. I personally prefer to print a colorful divider page on cardstock. Another way around the divider issue is to use small binders, one per “section”. In my personal experience with this option however, I ended up making up sub-sections left and right, leading me to tabs with a single page behind them, which drives me nuts.
How to have your sleeves and tabs too: You can get sticky tabs and put them on sheet protectors containing card stock divider pages. Post-It now makes sturdy tabs, but I imagine that they wouldn’t stay stuck well enough. There are permanent ones that stick to both sides and have paper inserts for section titles. I *think*, but I’m not certain, that Avery at one time had their index tab system available in extra wide tabs that theoretically extend past the protectors. If you can find these, they may be useful to you. I believe Avery has pre-tabbed sheet protectors available also.
*originally created August 31, 2004
