Happy 2017, all!
I hope your holiday season was amazing, and that you were able to spend quality time with your family. I’m so excited to start the year off right with practical, helpful tutorials like this one that will make your whole year easier, happier, and healthier. Today’s project is one of my favorites because it’s very easy to do!
We’re going to learn how to organize warranties and manuals quickly and easily.
The new year always makes us want to be more organized, to take on those home projects we’ve been putting off, and to do everything possible to start off on the right foot. Today, we’re going to organize all of those warranties and manuals you have laying around. You’ve probably been meaning to organize them, right? Check that item off your to-do list today!
There are lots of different ways to organize warranties and manuals, but I tend to prefer binders because of their affordability, and because I don’t have a whole lot of file cabinet space. Plus, binders look really pretty on the outside – even when the inside is a hot mess.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- All your warranties and manuals: appliances, electronics, cars, and anything else you can think of. No manual is too small or too large.
- A binder or two. They don’t need to be new, just look decent
- Binder dividers with labels
- Clear plastic sheet protectors
If you don’t have these on hand, the links above are to affordable yet pretty options I found on Amazon. They are affiliate links, meaning that if you click on them, I may make a small commission at no cost to you!
Instructions:
1. Gather All Your Warranties and Manuals
Even though you’re excited to get started stuffing warranties into binders, hold on because it will go much smoother and be more organized in the end if you wait until you’ve scoured the house for every single warranty and manual you can find. Collect them all in one room and sort them into general categories. I used Appliances, Electronics, Cars, Outdoors, and Garage. If you have any manuals that don’t fit into these categories, feel free to make more categories!
Take a small box with you to gather all your warranties – you’ll probably have more than you realize!
2. Find or Buy Your Supplies
Once you have gathered up all your manuals, it’s time to set up your binders. If you haven’t bought or found everything you need, now is the time to do this:
- A binder or two. They don’t need to be new, just look decent
- Binder dividers with labels
- Clear plastic sheet protectors
I used tabs I already had + circle stickers for labeling.
You can either buy the kind that uses label inserts, or the kind you write on. Either will work.
3. Set Up Your Categories
Since you already sorted your manuals into piles by category, make one tab for each pile. You can use absolutely any categories that make sense to you. These are what made sense to me:
- Automotive
- Appliances
- Outdoors
- Garage
- Electronics
- Furniture
My preference is for more general categories rather than dialing into more specific ones, but you can use whatever makes sense in your brain. Do whatever works for you.
4. Start Putting Manuals In The Binder
Now that you’ve done all the prep work, this part should go pretty quickly: putting the warranties in the binder.
Most of mine fit nicely into the plastic sheet protectors, but occasionally some were over sized.
For those that were too big, I simply folded them in half, and then slid them right into the sheet protectors.
Some of your manuals will have more than one component, and in that case put all the pieces into the same protectors so you can find them quickly and easily.
You may need to fill more than 1 binder – we did! – and once they’re filled you can store them anywhere: in your office, in the kitchen, or on a random bookshelf. They will look nice on the outside, and contain your warranties nice and neatly!
Congratulations on doing this project!
I told you it would be easy!
Isn’t it nice not to have those scattered all around your house anymore?
Are you tired of wasting precious time shuffling papers and looking for your missing shoe, or your vanishing purse? You dream of short-cuts to make your life more organized, but is it possible?
You’ve got great reasons for wanting to be more organized. You want the best for your family. You want to teach your kids to live in calmness, not chaos. You want to be patient without losing your ever-lovin’ mind in the insanity of so much stuff. And you just want to savor the time you have, instead of running around chasing clutter.
But sometimes it just feels so hard.
Maybe you’ve tried to get more organized before, and failed. Or thought you found the perfect system, only to have it not work for you at all.
You’re not alone. I’ve tried for years to finally “conquer the clutter” with a bunch of methods that didn’t work.
Or worse, they cost too much money to get up and going. (Hello, budget struggles!)
I know what it’s like to feel that getting organized shouldn’t be so hard, and the answer definitely isn’t to keep wasting money on more storage containers or pricey planners, either!
But what if you could learn from a group of organizing gurus all at once — regular people who’ve found practical solutions to their everyday struggles, and want to share their best tips and tactics with you in all the areas you find most challenging?
Because when you have the right info and tools at your fingertips, it’s so much easier. You know which papers to keep (and which should immediately be thrown away). You’re more confident in saying no to the things on your calendar that don’t matter (and yes to the things that do). You start learning the difference between what you really need and what will just add to the clutter to your home. You feel less stressed (and you’ll probably enjoy life more, too).
That’s why Stephanie and her team have put together the Conquer Your Clutter Super Bundle for the very first time. Their customers have been begging for help with streamlining their lives. The answer was this super-short opportunity to get a complete collection of organizational resources for a crazy low price.
You sort of need to see it to believe it, but the package includes 38 digital products on topics like how to organize your photos, decluttering, family systems, meal planning, time management, and much more.
All together, it’s worth over $650!
Plus, it comes with two brilliant bonus offers worth over $40:
Besides being so incredibly helpful and inspiring, one of the things I like best about the bundle is the price. By offering the bundle for a short time only, they’re able to give you access to over $650 worth of amazing products for a whopping 95% off!
Here’s how it works:
- Visit their website, take a quick look at all the goodness that comes in this Super Bundle, then click “Get my copy now!” to go through their simple 3-step checkout process.
- You’ll receive an email with a login to their online access portal, where you’ll begin downloading your eBooks, signing up for your eCourses, printing out planners, and redeeming your free bonus products.
- Use their Getting Started Guide to pick the area you want to tackle first and start getting organized!
The most important detail, though, is that this bundle is available for just 6 days! After Monday night, January 30th, the sale ends and you’d have to buy all of these products individually.
I’d hate for you to miss out, so click HERE to learn more or buy the bundle.
(It’s even backed by a full money-back happiness guarantee, so you can know for sure that it’s right for you.)
No one should have to feel overwhelmed one more minute because it costs too much or they can’t get the help they need. By finding systems and strategies that really work for us, our home and daily life is much calmer than it used to be. It’s made all the difference in the world and I want the same for you and your family.
Personally, I’m excited to get a great deal and get my new home organized too!
This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosures for more information.
Lindsey Mozgai says
I would of really like to see pictures of the way you organized yours, I recently did a project that was similar to this myself! Since we live in an apartment we only really had a few warranties and manuals to organize.
Gretchen says
Haha – yeah me too! you know when you schedule something but forget to the put the pictures in? You guessed it – that was this post! I’ll have them in by the afternoon :-)