Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful - William Morris
It's that time again, and this week's declutter project focused on PAPER. Lots of it, actually. I guess that's what happens when you ignore it for a while . I was just throwing it into a basket so my counters looked clear...but then the basket got full and the paper spread to other parts of the room......well, you get the picture. It was time to organize the paper that had invaded my home. Oh where to start....
I decided to use the kitchen table to organize all of my papers and folders because I could spread out and organize in *piles*. The basket was filled to the brim since I had been filling it up since Christmas with mail, bills and misc. receipts, tax folders, etc.. (I also wasn't sure what else was in there, so it was time to get started!)
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| Mail, bills, cards, magazines, etc. collected from around the house... |
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| All the paper gathered in one place...too much if you ask me! |
After three long hours of sorting, purging, shredding and organizing, I'm happy to report that all papers are securely put away in their appropriate files...including the *trash* file.
All papers from 2011 have also been sorted and will be stored in our basement in a plastic container. All new 2012 folders are now in my desk drawer. AND, I'm also happy to report that my desk still looks like this:
Another successful project completed. Now if only I could catch up on my coupons....
How do you organize your papers?
13 comments:
I so need to do this!! I have been putting it off way to long, also need to store my 2011 files and pull out tax papers. Daughter #1 told me yesterday the Staples had some really cute orginizers she was picking up to work over her office. I though bingo thats what I needed to get going, NOT!! Gotta stick with the no/low spend challenge. I will follow your lead and get it done this week!!
awesome!!!! good job! I got most of my bedroom decluttered ~ I tossed 3 grocery bags & donated like 5!!!! (and I still have a bit to do!)
That's a LOT of papers to go through!! lol! We keep ours in a drawer, which I do need to go through. Maybe I'll hit a couple of the kitchen drawers I've been meaning to do today! ;)
Daunting indeed but with little bites it gets finished. I keep all my monthly bills/statements etc in my office in a box. At the end of the year I file downstairs what needs to be filed and shred what is no longer needed. Getting things ready like envelopes for income tax receipts, makes life less stressful (most of the time)
I did something like this one day last week. It took me over 8 hours to do it all, but now it's done.
Next up on the list is preparing monthly numbers for income tax and filing in my Big Book of Everything.
Good job on the decluttering!
If I've heard of that saying by William Morris before, I must have forgotten about it. But I love it and will now remember it and try to live by it.
Congrats on keeping up with your decluttering!
m.
Great work Sharon, It's not the most exciting task but so worth it!
Sft x
Your desk looks wonderful and that quote by William Morris is one of my all-time favorites. I use it to inspire me all the time.
I keep a paper recycling basket and a shredder right by desk and that helps a lot. I need to switch over my 2011 files to 2012 so your post is inspiring. Thanks.
Most of the time, I'm a complete neat freak. However, when I get super stressed out, I just let the mail pile high until it drives me bananas. My solution is to deal with it right away. That means get the mail from the mailbox, and start making 4 piles - recycle, shred, DO NOW, DO LATER, PENDING. I'm a visual person so I can't stick the papers away and hope that i get them later so the last 3 piles I put into pretty baskets. Then I make time during the week to do the later and pending items.
I attacked my paperwork whilst rearranging and organizing the Room of my Own. Surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I've gone paperless with so many bills and statements now - I bet I saved one tree's life over the past year!
It's a thankless task so kudos to you for getting it done. It's one of those jobs that's so easy to put off to another day...or month!
I wish I could hire you to come do this in my office and at home!! I'm buried under stacks of paper!
Organize? Youre supposed to organize?? Seriously, I have filed on my desk for everything I am involved in, and files below fr what I guess you would call permanent files. I ahve files for ebay, files for yome inprovements, files for my writing assignments. I also have a large pin full of papers and another one full of shredding that I HAVE to deal with.
UGh the COUPONS! I got to work on those yesterday. No fun. It took hours and I haven't made a dent. Oh well. I think I'm going to aim for one insert every day. And I'm going from newest to oldest so there's less and less to clip as I get going.
It never fails to amaze me how much work goes into managing a household!
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