How to Organize DVDs in a File Cabinet

DVDs are often so inexpensive now that it's more cost effective to buy a DVD that you can watch multiple times, rather than rent it for almost the same cost. This can lead to expansive DVD collections in your home that are entertaining but often scattered and disorganized. Special DVD holders often hold only a handful of films, are expensive, and leave DVDs open to the air to catch dust. A great solution is to organize DVDs in a file cabinet, a great storage place you may already have in your home! The movies stay in order in one place, are out of sight and away from dust and sunlight.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Workspace
• Empty file cabinet drawer
• Drawer labels

1. File cabinets come in different sizes. Using a dozen DVDs, see how they best fit in the drawer and work out an estimate of how many movies each file drawer will hold. You want the DVDs to be placed with the side edges (or "spine") up, so that you can easily read the titles when you look inside the drawer.

2. Make sure you have room to grow. If you've cleared out two file drawers and it looks like your collection will just fit, it's time to clear another drawer. You need room to add DVDs, and open space so it's not necessary to shift your entire collection every time you add one or two films.

3. Decide how to categorize your movies. Alphabetical makes them easiest to find, but you may want to group them by genre (e.g., horror, drama, comedy). See Tips and Warnings.

4. Separate your DVDs into your chosen categories. Make sure you have enough workspace so you can spread out your whole collection. See Tips and Warnings.

5. Decide how to divide the drawers. If you have four drawers and are going to store them alphabetically, a logical division would be:
   
   Drawer 1: A-F
   Drawer 2: G-L
   Drawer 3: M-R
   Drawer 4: S-Z
   
   This is just an initial guideline and can be shifted accordingly. For genre categorization, each drawer can contain one or two different genres. Look at the piles of DVDs. If you have a huge section of horror films, you know to give that genre a drawer to itself.

6. Take your first pile of separated DVDs and place in the first drawer, being sure to completely alphabetize them.

7. Make sure the titles are readable from the side of the drawer you are most likely to access them from.

8. However you alphabetize (e.g., from left to right and front to back), be consistent with each row and each drawer.

9. Leave empty space in each row if possible. This will make adding a new DVD in the correct place easy, without having to shift all the rows each time.

10. Finish placing DVDs in remaining drawers.

11. Label each drawer according to its contents. See Tips and Warnings.

Tips & Warnings

• For the initial alphabetical separation, you can make separate stacks for each letter of the alphabet, or stacks representing two or more letters. Just put all the titles together that start with that letter--don't worry about alphabetizing them perfectly yet.
• For alphabetical categorization, skip "A", "An", or "The" and alphabetize by the first letter of the next word. If the title is or starts with a number (e.g., "300"), alphabetize it as if the number were spelled out ("Three Hundred"). This way you always know how to look for a title, even if you can't remember if it starts with "10" or "Ten".
• For genre categorization, you'll still want to alphabetize within each genre. So in your first separation, you might want to make separate piles within each genre to help you get things in roughly alphabetical order when you got to place them in their appropriate drawers.
• Many file cabinets have special holders on the front of the drawers to slide labels into. Labels can be printed on the computer so that they look neat and professional. If your cabinet doesn't have a label holder, use non-permanent adhesive or magnets on labels made from stock paper. This way if you need to relabel the drawer, you won't have to scrape off the old label or be stuck with layers of labels on your cabinet.
• Categorizing by genre can get tricky. Many movies can fall into more than one category, and you might not remember which section you placed it in. If your collection isn't that large, it shouldn't be a problem to look in two places for a video. If you have to open five drawers before you find a film though, it's probably a better idea to just alphabetize your collection.

Resources

• Search through a variety of file cabinets at reasonable prices at Office Depot!
• Buy magnetic labels and other supplies at ReStockIt.