Monday, May 11, 2020

Coronavirus Cleaning Day 9: Finished Files


It snowed today.  It was a good day to get some inside work done.  We finished cleaning out the filing cabinet.  These bags are full of the papers we removed after going through the shredder.  We have a couple of piles of papers to file and go through and then we are done!

Paper clutter is one of the hardest to get rid of.  It takes time to sort through things and make decisions.  To start, the easiest way to deal with paper clutter is to stop it from entering your home.  We have a recycling bag next to our trash can where we walk into the house.  All those political ads, catalogs, and other junk mail go right into the recycling bag.  That stops at least 30-50 percent from having to be dealt with.  We sort through the rest and open any bills and recycle the envelopes they came in.  We save each bill (and the envelope we are supposed to use to send in the bill) and keep them in a stack until pay day when we write all the bills at once.

For those who want to avoid most of the the paper clutter all together, consider paying bills online.

Try to keep your papers in one central location.  If you are someone who dumps things into piles, that can be a problem, especially if there are papers in your piles that need attention.  It is also frustrating for those who also live in the home to have piles of papers everywhere.  Work together with the people in your home to find a good system that works for everyone.  One warning, some people go to great lengths to organize their papers, keeping so many that are totally unnecessary.  I compare it to having 20 bins of material or crafts.  At some point, enough is enough.  Organized or not, having way to much is just too much.  Purging is a very important part of decluttering; organized hoarding is not.  If you are one of those who keep years worth of organized magazines, then maybe it is time to rethink what you are doing.  But, the variety of links should be able to help everyone find something that suits them and their situation.

Here are a few videos and links if you are interested in finding out more about managing paper clutter.  Some of these articles aren't very careful about tax documents and other important records, so check this website here before getting rid of papers that let you know how long to keep them, starting with page 2 of the document. 

13 Ways to Get Rid of Paper Clutter

6 Steps to Organizing Papers, Marie Kondo's way

The Solution to Paper Clutter

Pinterest Ideas and Links for Paper Control   and Here is another Pinterest Link



Paper Clutter, Paper Organizing  (Digital Storing Video)



Use These 5 tips to Clear Paper Clutter



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