30 Minutes to Less Paper Clutter

Paperwork is a major struggle in most of our homes. We amass too much paper and find it stacked and spread in many rooms of the house. Organizing paperwork is a unending goal in many of today’s households. We live busy lives, who has the time to fight with paper! It’s time to take four simple steps and 30 minutes today to eliminate your paper clutter!

Divide Into Three Stacks: Begin by separating your papers into three different piles. Fight the urge to do anything other than sort with papers yet. To start you only need to divide your papers using these three categories. You only want to spend fifteen minutes on this part of the process so power ahead! Don’t spend a lot of time debating or getting distracted, just sort your papers quickly.

TOSS: Everything you will throw away or recycle goes in your first pile. This includes any papers you won’t need again or need to respond to. Articles, newspaper clippings, and other articles you have been planning to read that, honestly, you are not going to find time for anytime soon. Old and out of date papers. Not organizing paperwork sooner may have resulted in missed invitations or events! Any documents that are now readily available online. Miscellaneous paper, notes or shopping lists that have ended up stashed with other important papers.

FILE: Your second pile includes all the papers you need to file. This is all the paperwork you need to keep, but also don’t need to act on. For example your previous years’ tax records.

ACTION: Papers that require you to do something with them go into your third pile. This includes invitations you still need to RSVP to and bills that still have to be paid.

Toss Stack: Your toss pile will take you the next five minutes. This will be the easiest and most straight forward pile to take care of. The whole stack goes in the recycle bin! Spend your time shredding any papers with personal id information or accounts on them. Keeping a paper shredder near your work space will help this task go quickly.

File Stack: Next the second pile of papers. Try setting a timer to keep yourself on task, add five minutes for this task. Organizing paperwork does not have to take all day! This step will take longer if you don’t not have a simple straightforward filing system. You could use the fast-filing method or another simple system that makes sense to you. An easy filing system will help you clear this stack in your five minute window no problem. When organizing paperwork keep in mind most of the paper we file away is never referenced again. Will this be the case with the papers you are filing? Maybe some of your file stack could really go to the paper shredder.

Action Stack: You’ve nearly finished! The action pile gets five more minutes. The to-dos in this family will actually likely take more than five minutes. You will use these five minutes to come up with a plan to get them done. Make a commitment to yourself to complete this stack. Estimate about how long you will need to complete the actions these papers require. It might take you thirty minutes or up to several hours. Schedule an appointment with yourself to complete the to-dos in the action stack. Don’t stand yourself up or reschedule, this is important!

It may be tedious organizing paperwork but it is important! There are a number of benefits to sorting through your paperwork and reducing your home’s paper clutter. One of the most positive you will have your home back the way you want it! You won’t have random papers covering all of your counters and shelves. You will be able to locate any piece of paper you need to find, and you will pay your bills on time and never send a late rsvp again. Organizing paperwork means your daily stress is reduce every day!