Welcome to the 30-Day Organize-athon!
In today’s 5 minutes we’re going to express-organize your paperwork.
Ready, set, organize!
Day 14: Organize Your Paperwork
Step 1: Gather all the paperwork from around your home – whether strewn throughout the house, covering every surface of your home office, or assembled in a towering pile. (If this alone takes more than 5 minutes it doesn’t count!)
Step 2: Quickly flick through the papers and create 3 piles:
- Action Pile: Papers that need your attention – look for bills, school notices, invitations, etc.
- File Pile: Papers that need to be filed – look for warranties, tax info, insurance notices, important receipts, etc.
- Discard Pile: Papers that you don’t need – look for junk mail, notices for past events, random scraps of paper, etc.
Keep it moving and don’t overthink. If you’re really in doubt about something, put it on your Action Pile to consider when you have more time.
Step 3: Schedule a time during the week to action the Action Pile and file the File Pile.
Step 4: Discard the Discard pile. Be sure to shred sensitive information.
And you’re done!
NOTE: We’ll tackle the rest of your desk, den, study, or home office area tomorrow.
Got an Extra 5 Minutes?
- Start dealing with your Action Pile now. It’ll be easier to continue later if you start now; and/or
- File your File Pile; and/or
- Shred your sensitive Discard Pile.
Now don’t you feel liberated?
The 30-Day Organize-athon Mantra
Move fast. Don’t overthink. Let it go!
Leave Your Comment Below…
Please leave your comment below to say you’ve done today’s task.
See you tomorrow!
[Image by aussiegall]
I have a healthy shredding pile! Only done paperwork in my two binders, some deep storage stuff in bedroom will need to wait until there is no-one sleeping in there.
I will have a shredding mountain before I’m done. Seven yrs of online statements now offered by my bank, so I may need a new shredder soon. I will be able to condense my paper storage bigtime – yay!
DONE !
Ta-Done!
Takes bit more than 5 mins but now it’s DONE!! Soo glad I finally made it 😀
I’ve been working on this one for a week….will be done today!! 🙂
This is something I try to do often, so it was fairly quick.
I started this earlier this week, but unfortunately I have lots left to do. I put a dent into it today!
done with the 5 min part. This is right on time for me. I have been re organizing and cleaning out all file cabinets for the past couple of weeks. It is so true 80-90% of what was in there is no longer relevant. Bought a wonderful file label system that made it all so easy.
This didn’t take me long at all considering that most of my paperwork is confined in folders in my backpack. I did need to throw out a lot of old assignments and paperwork I didn’t need anymore. My backpack feels a lot lighter now lol.
Done, my desk looks so good.
Done.
I totally need this… it could take all day! But most of it is done 🙂
Now we are getting to some of my trouble spots. Just collecting took way more than five minutes. With four kids, sports, scouts, PTA, etc. I have an abundance of paper and trouble figuring out what to keep, etc. I am done for now, with more work to follow!
Took much longer than 5 minutes. An area our whole family needs to work on!
Wow!! Needed this one – what a project!! this will definitely take more than 5 minutes!! I am devoting the morning to this task in my office.
I actually did this over my spring break so … I am done.
I had just gone through our paperwork in preparation for an extended trip. The urgent file is packed to go, the pending on return file is on my desk, and the discard file is where it belongs.
Task #14 done!
Done. I like Jamie English’s idea. May have to switch over to that system.
This one took a bit more than 5 minutes, but I am getting there. Thanks again