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Welcome to Day 6 of 7 Days To A Dramatically Decluttered Home.
Today’s task will take about 1 hour. How long you spend depends on what you want to achieve.
We’re going to tackle an area that’s a big problem for many people – paperwork.
Don’t put it off any longer!!
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I will make it a point to keep paperwork in one place but will be sure to discard a ton of it! Hope that’s not literally true! I will also take this action in a weekly schedule ! Thank you!
I tend to my my ‘action’ pile each week and my ‘to be filed’ pile each month. So far this works, and keeps everything in a more systematic order rather than chaos.
The following is my groups decisions:
1. Paper that can be discarded
Include in this pile: Anything you don’t need to keep or action
Anything out of date – invitations, notices, etc.
Reading material you’ll never get to: donate to local book club or your local library – which probably means all of it, given that newer, more up-to-date stuff is constantly available. Magazines are flammable = store in metal filing cabinet/metal cabinet. The best thing is to read magazines online. Save articles in your favorites.
Anything you can get elsewhere if needed – info that’s available online, archived, kept by someone else, etc. Keep all materials for your current project.
Random indecipherable scribbling! Doctors have unreadable scribbling or faded out copies do not keep.
2. Paper that needs to be filed
Include in this pile: Anything you don’t need to action but do need to keep – e.g. tax receipts, financial records, employment stuff, and medical receipts/documents; personal correspondence written or received; address books/type your address book into Excel as Excel has the capability of adding and deleting; photos etc. When you can afford purchase a safe that fits into a corner of your closet to store important documents, jewelry
3. Paper that needs action.
Include in this pile: Anything you need to action – e.g. reports to write, tasks to complete, bills to pay, updating your address book; confirmation numbers; medical receipts; photos put in photo albums or scrapbooks; obituaries; returning merchandise; etc.
1. Paper that can be discarded
This one’s super-simple: just get rid of everything. This is a good idea but certain documents need to be kept. Consider scanning certain documents into your computer.
Shred sensitive or identifying papers: financial statements/receipts after it’s paid recycle the rest.
TIP: If you have an enormous pile of papers that need to be shredded, consider using a local commercial shredding service. Your local banks periodically have a shredder in the parking lot & you can bring your documents up there to shred.
2. Paper that needs to be filed
Your papers that need to be kept for reference can go into your files. Having colored file folders to keep your filing papers in
If you don’t have time now to deal with your to-be-filed papers, then schedule an appointment with yourself to do this within the next week.
Because I decluttered glassware from a kitchen cabinet, I now have room to store groceries that had be stored in a cart. I re-arranged my shelves and moved some groceries from the cart to the cabinets. My goal is to do a little more re-arranging and decluttering in my kitchen, so I can move everything into the cabinets and toss that old unsightly cart in the trash!
I started setting up my new filing system and filed some of the papers I separated into piles last week 🙂
Done! Now the key is to do the filing and actions – I have a bad habit of organizing papers to be dealt with and not following through. I was surprised at how much of the paper clutter was just documents that need to be shredded! I did get together some hanging folders and tabs to set up a new filing system I’ve been wanting to try out. And between having the paper clutter out of the way and dumping a broken printer, I took the opportunity to do some dusting and vacuuming in the office. (I also did more decluttering in the living room and some re-arranging in the bedroom closet. And had to re-organize my donation box as it was overflowing!)