Document bag goodness

Related to my last post, I was at Daiso some months ago and they have a wall of document boxes, folders, protectors, folios and bags.  I was looking for the ziplock variety but sadly they didn't have the right selection of those.  They did have quite a few of the zipper variety though so I bought a stack of them in various sizes. Prior to that, the only document "cases" I had were the simple plastic ones that closed with a string or velcro, and a few bigger accordian-sytle ones that closed via elastic bands.  Last year I had a lot of legal paperwork connected with immigration and buying a house, among other things, and these things came in really handy.  Early on I had used plain-ole manila folders because I had plenty of those but didn't do a great job protecting and they always got all tattered and cards and things would fall out.  I dug out some plastic ones that I had held onto for decades and started using those instead;  being enclosed, they were much easier to throw into my bag without worry and being plastic they were more robust and protected things better.  However, I never liked the string/velcro closing flap and the plastic was old and thin and had a lot of creases in them from previous use so when I saw the ones at the Japanese store, I indulged... and indulged again a couple more times.

I just realized how mindboggingly useful these are.  And I only thought to write something down about it because I really don't see all that many people (or at least non-Asians) using them.  I certainly didn't use them or something like them before all that much and when I think about it it's only because I didn't know any better and what's commonly available isn't all that good. I started using A4 and B4 sized ones to hold and transport property-related papers.  On my recent Hong Kong trip I used a set of B5 ones to hold the family passports, money, and travel docs as well as little trinket/sousvenirs/pictures I collected and A5 ones for the red-pocket-money, receipts, and other random things.  Before I would have just had them in a jacket or pant pocket, or some pocket in my backpack, bag, or suitcase... or worse, in a plastic grocery bag.  Typically things would just collect and fall to the bottom of the bag, or I'd have to fish things out or empty out the pocket completely to get what I was after.  But with these, things were just better organized and convenient and easier to access.  It was nice to look in my backpack NOT for e.g. all individual passports and papers, but for a single identifiable sleeve-bag that had everything related in it, and kept things shielded from pocket abuse.  So I ended up looking for some more while I was there since I didn't bring enough and bought a few extra because they're not readily available at stores back home.

Most of the variety I got were the zipper closures and had a thicker plastic, usually with a mesh lining for robustness and sturdiness.  I have a few mylar-type with the ziplock-style enclosure that I actually prefer but the stores didn't have the size or type I wanted.  Still I'm happy with the zipper variety; I feel they're more general purpose.  These bags are sized according to the A and B paper size conventions which is wonderfully consistent.  The downside is that the US still uses the ridiculous letter-size documents and sets of non-cohering sizes for everything else.  Luckily the bags usually accommodate them if not as elegantly.  These items are so good I've also started using them for more permanent storage and not solely for transportation needs.  I haven't worked out exactly the role they'll play in my filesystem yet.  I never liked hanging file folders and fileboxes, as practical as they are so I'm always looking for a better system.