Need Advice on Preventing Paper Clutter

Nicole,

You've received really great advice so far. My recommendation to you after taking a 3 month procrastination cure course to learn to deal with this type of thing is this...

Do the tiniest thing possible and reward yourself.

This may vary depending on you and your personality, but if I were in your situation, these are the steps I would take:
Day 1: Go to store and buy those cardboard file boxes. Open them up, put them by the file cabinet. Tell myself: "Great job getting prepared to declutter!"
Day 2: Take out part of the files in the cabinet and place them in the box (or all if it felt OK). Tell myself: "I'm the kind of person who declutters my home."
Day 3: Maybe continue from yesterday (fill the box and put in storage), maybe move on to next step: Filing ONE piece of paper from on top of the cabinet. If you file just ONE piece of paper each day, in NO TIME it will be gone.

Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes when I look at a stack of papers like that, I feel like "there's no way I have time to do that," so I just leave it. IF I tell myself, I only have to do 1 piece of paper, I am much more likely to do at least 1 and very often way more than 1.

Try to make it fun and silly if there is any way to do that. Just ask yourself: "What is one, tiny, insignificant step I can take to clear these papers?" And let the answer come to you...maybe at 2am or in the shower, you'll have an epiphany and think "oh yeah! That's it!"

Hope this helps in addition to all the other great advice!

I hate paper clutter too. This is how I got rid of it. All my bills are sent electronically via email or through my bank. Also I opt out of mailed promotions unless it's a company I intend to do business. You may want to try that.

Long term kid clutter...
I homeschooled for 2yrs so school papers were always an issue because I was required to keep everything to present to my school board and state dept of ed. I bought a plastic rolling cart with drawers because it can be easily hidden away but easily moved to desk or table. One drawer labeled TODAY, another THIS WEEK, THIS MONTH and placed papers in them as appropriate. At the end of each month they were placed in subject folders in my file cabinet.

Short term kid clutter...
Now both my kids attend school so I don't have to save so much paper. Each child has their own bulletin board in the family room. At the end of each week they hang their fav assignments or tests. I stand them in front and take their pic. By the time the next week rolls around the old papers are trashed and new ones go up. For special artworks, I scan them or take individual pics. End of the month we print out all the pics and add them to their photo albums. Thank goodness for digital cameras!

Just be careful. My daughter is required to use study sheets so I place them in a binder so check with son's teacher on what he needs to keep. First month of school I goofed and threw away her science sheets. Thankfully her teacher understood.

Hope this helps. Good luck on your quest for tidiness :)

~Pam

What helps me is the "touch only once" rule. When I get the mail everyday, I open in the kitchen, and everything that can be recycled (envelopes, generic paper, etc.) goes right into the recycling. Then the mail gets sorted into 3 piles:
1) shred. Which gets done every day--takes only 1 minute that way, as opposed to waiting until there's a pile...otherwise it takes too long and fritzes out the motor on my shredder. We keep our shredder in the office, plugged in and ready to go.
2) file. Which gets done that night or every other day. The key is to do it regularly so it only takes a minute or so rather than waiting for it to pile up.
3) attend. These are things like bills, which need to be logged/paid, things that require calls or responses, etc. I put these in my planner for me to get to when I get a free minute...usually while I'm on hold making a call about something I got the previous day in the mail. :)

I have the kind of personality where paper clutter is just a way of life- I keep thinking that I will "grow out of it" or something, and as of yet that hasn't happened :)

BUT, one thing that sort of works for me (I am an extreme case, so this is good!) is to get some paper-organizers from a place like Target. The key here is to get ones that are attractive to you, cute, pretty, whatever you really like- it might seem silly to spend $14 on something like this, but it really does make a difference. It makes keeping things less cluttered and having a place for all your papers so much easier, and its nice to look at which is an added incentive.

As far as children's papers, it seems like they get so many crafts and little assignments each day, and it can get a little mind-boggling. Being the greeny that I am, I keep thinking "this took HOW many trees?...." lol :) But, I would keep a special box for these. Maybe not EVERYTHING- Maybe not math homework for example, but I would keep most everything. This year I was at my boyfriends dad's house and stumbled across a few of his grade-school notebooks- PRICELESS. Worth keeping for sure: )

Hi Nicole
My pesonal system is to have 3 drawer cart on top of the filing cabinet (just because it works best in my house like that)then label school work Misc and bill or whatever labels work for you I throw the stuff I know I can and the rest gets put in one of these drawers. My husband looks through the school work and tosses after he has looked and the rest gets gon through on a monthly bases some times longer if I am really busy. Not the best system but it works for a busy mom. Good Luck:)

I clean my filing cabinet out once a year and get rid of stuff I don't want anymore as well as move the bill statements to a box in the basement to make more space.

I have a plastic container that I put my 2-year old daughter's art in that I want to keep, the rest goes in reclycling or put on the fridge for a while.

I clear my mail once a week.

I have files in a drawer in the kitchen for coupons for shopping and restaurants so they are easy to access when I need them. I clear those out every few months to get rid of the ones that have expired.

I seem to always have a pile on my desk that needs to be sorted through. I think it's just the time we live in where paper is everywhere. It's challengin to stay on top of it all. When I get overwhelmed, I just take care of 5 pieces at a time which might just take a minute or two. If you do that each day, in a week you've dealt with 35 pieces!! Just break it down to small manageable amounts. That helps!!

Good luck,

P.

Taxes- keep for 7 years. I keep all tax related documents including required receipts, in a separate area from my regular filing cabinet. That way nothing gets mixed up.

Phone bills- keep until you don't have space for them anymore! (Where I live, the phone company is famous for screwing you. I keep records of all conversations I have with their Customer service reps, with names, dates, and details, right on the bill it pertains to.)

All other utility bills, and car insurance receipts - my dad recommends keeping for one year.

Bank statements- same.

Birth certs, Soc Security cards, marriage certs, title to your car, title to your home- keep in a fire-safe lock-box.

Financial info (stocks, bonds, retirement funds etc)- same.

How I deal w/ kid's artwork: I saved the first few pieces he drew, and save one piece per month (he's only 2). I send all the other scribbles along with letters to family. When he gets older, I plan to scan his artwork into the computer, or take digital photos of everything, and only keep SOME of the originals. I plan to have him help decide what gets kept.

Best way to prevent paper clutter is to deal with each piece as it is generated or as it comes in the door. Since that doesn't always happen, the other weapon I have in my bag of tricks is what my mother calls the "take no prisoners" approach. I sit down for 15 minutes each week and the most recent stack and deal with each piece as I touch it. Handle each piece ONLY ONCE.

Dealing with the backlog of papers stuffed in the file cabinet and everywhere else- first take everything out of your file cabinet and put it in a large box and mark it with today's date and the words "PAST PAPERS" or something like that so you always know what's in there. Then every day (or every week) take 15 minutes and sit down and do the take no prisoners thing with whatever is on top. Most of it you will be able to toss, but you will probably find some "keepers". You can do this with ALL your random papers that are crammed here there and everywhere in your house.

I've found the most important thing for me is to get the desk or counter completely cleared off, even if it means dumping everything in a box, so I can get started purging the old stuff with a clean slate to work from going forward.

Check out www.Flylady.com and her table of contents page for more ideas. I've been a member for about one year now.

BEST OF LUCK BEATING THE CLUTTER BATTLE! -from one paper warrior to another :)

When I get mail I sort almost daily. Inserts from bills w/o my name or personal info goes into the recycling. Junk mail with name & other info goes in the shredder(when I empty goes into a plastic garbage bag the also goes to recycling. windowed envelopes to to trash as can not go to recycling. Hope this helps. I hate the cludder also. Gook luck