How should you keep your important documents organised?

Thinking in three layers makes this easy — originals, digital copies, and the numbers alone. Each serves a different purpose, and each should live somewhere different.

Keep the originals in one place and generally leave them there. Admissions and employers almost always accept attested photocopies, so getting several attested copies of the documents you use often keeps the originals at home.

Keep digital copies separately — in one named folder rather than scattered through the phone’s gallery, with a backup so a lost or broken phone does not take them with it. ⚠️ Do not leave photographs of your ID sitting in messaging apps; you lose control of who eventually sees those chats.

The third layer gets skipped most often and earns its keep most — the numbers written down on their own: birth registration, passport, TIN, board registration. Even without the document to hand, knowing the number makes verification, a reprint or a complaint far easier.