If you are like me, when you get something new you generally just start using it. This is true regardless of whether it’s a new electronic gadget, a new tool, a new car, or a new software program. Once I’ve used it a bit I’ve usually discovered a few things that I want to do with the product that I can’t figure out on my own. I’ll typically sit down and flip through the manual to find out how to do those things. Once most people have done that, they will file the manual away and never open it again.

Over the life of a product, your own life and needs change. It’s a good idea to periodically re-read your users manuals to see if it has some feature that you didn’t need earlier, but now will make your life much easier. When you buy a new item, you may want to put a note in your tickler file one month out to re-read the manual for it. After that, you might want to re-read the manual every 6 months, 8 months, or a year. You don’t have to read every word in the manual. Just flip through it to get a good idea of what all the features really are. You’ll be amazed at the things you’ll discover about items you already own that you aren’t fully utilizing to their full potential.

Don’t wait until you buy somehting new though. Go dig out a couple of old users manuals today and see if you don’t find a nifty little feature that was there all along that you could have been using. You may even want to add “Flip through a users manual” as part of your weekly review—don’t do it until the end though or else you might get sidetracked playing with all the new fetures instead of finishing the weekly review.

Free bonus tip for storing users manuals: Most of my users manuals are stored in my A-Z filing system under Users Manuals. This keeps them all in one spot so I can easily find them. I have separate folders for each area of our home and all the manuals for items stored or used in that area are in that folder. Some of these folders are Kitchen, Living Room, Office, Deck and Yard, Storage Building, Bedrooms, and Bathrooms. For a few manuals, I will actually keep them with the product itself. For example, we recently bought a new television. While we learn about all its features, I’m keeping the manual in the entertainment center so I don’t have to go into my office to get it. The same goes for our new WeedEater WT3100—I’m keeping that manual in our storage building until my wife has used it for a few weeks and is totally comfortable with the starting procedures and such. The bottom line is to keep it where you will you be able to find it when you need it. For me, that means keeping most of them in their own section of my A-Z filing system.