There is a beast in our house and it has been here as long as I can remember. And I want it out. Or contained. Or tamed. Something has to change and I’m desperate for help.
It’s ugly.
It’s paper. It drives me insane. The mail, the papers from school, bills, magazines. It was bad before we started our business but now it is downright out of control. Bills from vendors, client contracts, maps to locations, quickbooks reports, receipts. We are drowning. At this moment we have no less than 10 stacks in our house worse than the one above. Not including my desk, or the cabinet packed to the gills with paper we haven’t gone through in the garage, or the two messy filing cabinets in our bedroom closet, the stacks on the kitchen counter, a few tucked away here and there that never got attention when we had company over and I had to hide them. Yes, our dirty little secret, we hide our stacks when people come over. And then we leave them there.
I can’t tell you how much time I have lost looking for something. A lot. I have tried so many times to figure out a way to manage the paper that comes into our home. I have. Filing systems, boxes, containers, cabinets, cute little mail holders. None of it works. And it is no wonder. I averaged it out a few weeks ago and approximately 40-50 paper items enter our house each weekday. That is insane. I need a secretary. Or a wife 😉
Someone please help me! If you have a system that works, how do you do it? If you have a command center in your house, how is it set up? If you have control of your paper/mail/school forms/doctor stuff/business stuff/receipts, action items, etc. etc. etc. please share your tips….cause I’m drowning.
I think your best bet is to try and make your life as paperless as possible, which would in turn make it greener as well 🙂 We’ve practically eliminated the need for paper bills coming to the house by utilizing online bill pay through our bank. Any paper mail that comes in is either opened immediately and the trashed (junk mail) or filed in our mail cubby until the end of the week. Each Friday any new bills are sorted and added to online bill pay and then thrown away. If a copy is needed we file it in our “important documents” folder. I usually check junk mail to see if there is a number or website I can visit to be taken off of the mailing list b/c I hate to imagine how many people are just tossing the junk mail.Magazines are hard but, since our house is on the market, clutter just cannot happen, so I go through those monthly and throw out the ones that I haven’t touched in a while or give them away on freecycle. Mapquest and GPS systems eliminate the need to save paper maps and I have a special folder for business receipts and another for coupons. You can eliminate this, but it will take some elbow grease and extra time. Maybe dedicate a weekend to getting it all sorted and organized and hopefully eliminated!
I’m so sorry! I have NO tips. I am also in the process of trying to figure things out. I just finished my school semester and my house also has tons and tons of papers stacked everywhere. Clothes baskets, boxes, filing cabinets, etc etc. We also hide our stacks when people come over and they stay there! hahaha I would love a good idea as well, so I am all ears!
You need an executive assistant.
I am volunteering. 🙂
you sound like me a few months ago. first step: go electronic!!all of your personal bills, sign up for paperless everywhere you can! opt out of magazines and credit card inquiries. when i get a new random catalog, i call immediately and ask to be removed from the list. to opt out of credit card offers (this is good for identity protection anyway!):
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
i now read ALL the mail as soon as I come home (or within 10-15 minutes). i keep a small filing organizer near the front door (which i throw in the office when company comes but otherwise is by the entry way table). i use something like this:
http://www.target.com/Expo-Expandable-Organizer-Clear/dp/B000MQSDXS
i sort through the mail and put it in my organizer by category (coupons, papers for filing, important documents, to do) and i trash the rest. ‘papers for filing’ is anything that you need to keep long term only to go in the permanent filing cabinet. ‘important documents’ is stuff that comes in the mail that i need to access easily in the short term. ‘to do’ is anything that requires my action.
by taking care of the paper coming in the house right away, it helps tremendously. but you always have to purge your organizer weekly otherwise it starts to overflow!
oh and i also have a designated basket that is just for magazines (conveniently next to our entry table) where all magazines go when they come in the door! when i’m in the mood to read a magazine, i just pay a visit to my trusty basket — no hunting for my most recent copy of Real Simple needed!
good luck figuring out a system that works for you!
For the business stuff… check out http://www.shootq.com I just started playing with it this week and it does EVERYTHING electronically it seems – even client contracts and ordering (it creates a custom portal for each client). There’s a bit of a learning curve, but it seems worth it in the long run.
SCAN!!! Buy a good and quick scanner, and make folders on your computer for each category…bills, receipts, etc. Back up often, and SHRED the paper! I know shredding is scary at first, but if you get a good system down, you will never have to worry about losing that information.
I bought some cute magazine holders at target and labeled each one. I put them in the kitchen counter where the usual mail goes. Now each time I get kids art, receipts, bills, etc, I just put them in the magazine holders. Once it fills up, then I file away permanently. It’s worked for me so far. Good luck to you!
I love this post! This is my ongoing conundrum as well. I was actually just at the store tonight looking for solutions to all the papers, bills and *stuff* that I have piled up here. Unfortunately, there were no storage solutions to be found. I’m definitely going to be checking all your comments, as I need a solution also!!
OH, I feel ya! Can’t help a lot, but…
-I keep all our medical/dental records in a travel type filing binder, easy to grab when I need it.
-All of our bills, address labels, and envelopes that need attention go in a mail sorter. This stuff is on a night stand in one corner of our kitchen by a large wipe off calendar and a bulletin board. I keep magnetic clips on the calendar to hold forms I need to sign or a schedule I need fairly soon.
-When the mail comes in, it’s sorted asap. Junk goes in the garbage. Bills get opened, I write the date it’s due on the envelope and it goes in the sorter.
-School forms get signed and returned and copies of them (so I know the details when the activity comes up) go on the bulletin board. Appointment slips, invitations, etc. go on the bulletin board as well.
-Our business stuff is smaller than yours I’m sure, but I keep a bank box with files in it and it’s arranged by type of job (we do hauling and snow plowing) and month. Not the neatest thing, but I can find what I need when DH asks!
I do admit that I file *everything* (self proclaimed pack rat) and I have a stack on my filing cabinet by our computer. However, it has all been dealt with and it’s a neat stack, lol. When I get a free moment, I file what I can. It is tough though and so overwhelming! You never know when you are going to throw away something you might need!
thank you all, i am loving all these ideas, keep them coming!
the minute the girls walk in the door, we go through of what we want to keep and throw out.
if it needs to be kept, but they don’t need it at the moment, say to study for a test, it goes in the “keep” drawer.
each kid has their own. if it needs to be studied it goes right on the kitchen counter or up in my room for me to test them in bed. they work best at night right before bed…well at least the 9 year old does!
at the end of the school year, we go through the “save” box and weed out most of it. save the important stuff. it goes into a manilla folder labled with age/year/grade/teacher etc.
my husband’s bill pile goes on the dining room table for him to go through or on his desk. and i close my eyes to that stack of his stuff!
i keep baskets on the floor of my office for stuff I want to save and need….2 different baskets…
my system works pretty well but Honestly I still have piles on my counter too. and i go through every so often and weed through.
my girls have keepsake boxes where i eventually put the saved manilla envelopes!
good LUCK!
tara
Not sure how I found your blog, but I’m a phx photographer who struggles slightly with this problem as well. I think reducing the incoming paper is definitely key…we also have reduced our incoming mail and try to do all banking/bills, online.
Here’s something that has started to WORK for me for kids school stuff. I bought “large document” boxes from Paper Plus online. I have one for each of my kids that sits in a closet. They are cute, colorful and labeled with their names. Every time I have a paper/project that I do want to save, I put it in these boxes. I have another file, near the phone that holds current school calendars/task items I need for the month or week. EVERYTHING ELSE from schools goes in recycle…all of it. I keep report cards, occasional cute papers and then the rest is gone!
I also have a filing cabinet right by my phone and the mail sits near there. I have a file labeled coupons with separate folders for food, house, clothing and anything I might use that I get in the mail goes into those folders asap.
In my hall closet I took EVERYTHING out and bought bins with lids that fill up the whole closet. Everything got sorted…crafts, paints, games, cards, paper, photos, gift bags etc etc and every one of those items now sits in a bin with a label in my closet…it makes you want to organize more when you just finish ONE place!!
Anyway, that’s the only thing I’ve mastered by way of clearing my clutter, but I’m working on it. My office is the next place to get organized…I can’t wait.
PS…I would consistantly make a rule to recycle 10-15 pieces of paper per day. It takes almost no time, but make a goal to do it and chart your progress to be accountable.
Sorry to hear about the paper overtaking your house. My husband has taken to scanning all of our important documents and backing them up on a hard drive (he has folders for each kind of bill/medical record/etc). To get rid of paper more quickly – he scans into a general folder and then sits on the computer to move the pdf files into their proper folders) It eliminates the paper mess but we still have copies if we need them! I hope this helps.
I have a quick tip for papers that come home from school…my boys are in pre-K and they make the cutest stuff and it is a true treasure for them. We bought each boy a large flat box that goes under their bed, every day as SOON as they get home from school, wash hands, change clothes they unload all their school papers into their boxes…at the end of the school year we sort through them and make a “book” out of the best stuff. I bought a cheap laminator on Amazon that we pereserve all their projects with…that keeps the glitter on the page and not on my floor. They LOVE to look through their books from last year (Big 3 ring binder) and it is a great summer project too. http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Mars-ML-95-Laminator/dp/B000OKOC82/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1242329410&sr=8-7 Thanks for all the other ideas everyone!
This picture is so familiar to me as I live in a mound of paperwork also. One thing I do is as soon as I get the mail I quickly go through and throw away all junk mail immediately. Next, I open all bills and put with my cash book. I have them lined up from top to bottom with a rubberband wrapped around my book with the soonest date due to the latter date due. I then put the ones that can wait in a basket to go through when I have a few spare moments,(while cooking, getting lunches ready, while the kids are eating breakfast). This gives me time away from my desk, work, etc.. Nice change of pace….Once a week, on a designated day, I go through the basket and see what is important and file in an alphabetized filing system. I just got one that has a handle on it so I can carry it to the room I would like to work on. Sometimes I work on this while I’m watching T.V. Hope these tidbits help!!