30-Day Organize-athon | Day 14: Organize Your Paperwork

30-Day Organize-athon 14

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:

  1. Action Pile: Papers that need your attention – look for bills, school notices, invitations, etc.
  2. File Pile: Papers that need to be filed – look for warranties, tax info, insurance notices, important receipts, etc.
  3. 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?

  1. Start dealing with your Action Pile now. It’ll be easier to continue later if you start now; and/or
  2. File your File Pile; and/or
  3. 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!

Start the 5-minute timer now.

Leave Your Comment Below…

Please leave your comment below to say you’ve done today’s task.

See you tomorrow!

[Image by aussiegall]

175 thoughts on “30-Day Organize-athon | Day 14: Organize Your Paperwork

  1. Lavinas says:

    All 15 tasks done – although some were quite easy as I have been doing an autumn cleaning of the house over the past few weeks.

  2. Silvia says:

    Have quite a good system for paper so it didn’t take me long to deal with my action file, although it took 10 instead of 5 minutes

  3. Joni says:

    I was so intent on getting on with the paper work….I forgot to mention that I’ve completed the second round of 7 days! Yay!! 14 days down.
    On to day 15…

  4. Laura B says:

    All papers that need dealt with are organized and put into one place. Will do what needs done with them next week, Spring Break!

  5. JRA in CO says:

    Started on the intended day…. busy day! This is a work in progress – WAY longer than 5 mins!! I home school, and this will take a while to get all their school papers in order!

  6. Amy J says:

    The papers are all gathered…just sitting in piles around our home office floor. I have a grad class on Thursdays, and didn’t get home until after 10:00, and the hubby didn’t know what I wanted done with most of the piles :-). This project will get finished today!

  7. Lauren says:

    All piles sorted! And I need to buy a shredder and a permanent paper recycle bin because that keeps me from getting rid of stuff on a regular basis.

  8. Tanya Watson says:

    Yay! I must know something – I always sort my paperwork into those 3 piles you described! Maybe there is hope for me yet. I did a lot of this on Day 5 but it’s a continual thing that I tend to have to do at least once a week.

  9. Bernadette says:

    Hard one since I keep papers like from my previous college semesters as reference and others. But I did it! Whew!

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