So this week Shannon decided to do something different. Instead of offering a tip,you ask for one. So here is mine:
How do you take care of paper clutter? Things like bills,mortgage statements,etc. How often do you go through them and throw them out? I have a filing cabinet but it has become a mess of papers.
Escribiré mañana
2 years ago
11 people love me:
Let's see, we used to keep things until our file cabinets became overloaded and then we'd go purge.
Now we have a scanner and we scan in our papers to create digital images and then we toss the hardcopy! :)
This works for us!
The scanner we have here at home is a Brother DCP 7020. It does faxes and copies too.
Get rid of it in the first place!
Seriously. In fact, later today I'm sending out my weekly tips newsletter on dealing with mail overload.
From a whole pile of things, I can reduce to 2 - 3 pages easy!
I have lots of other ideas on my blog and if you go to ezinearticles.com and type in Marcia Francois, I have an article on taming the paper monster :)
Organising queen and
Marcia's take charge blog
I don't have alot of paper clutter. Bill comes in, I pay it..no need to keep the stub since the bank keeps my checks for me. I could print it online if needed.
Mortgage statements? We get 1 a year at tax time, so I keep the updated one in my tax file.
Only need tax papers up to 7yr personal, 10 yrs business. I have file for ds(autism) school & each member has a "health" file for birth cert copy, SS info, etc.
First, I sort mail as soon as it's opened. It's either put in my basket for bills, tossed in the recycle bin, or shredded immediately. I HAVE to do this or I get overwhelmed by all the paper clutter.
I keep all paid bills and receipts in a file box. Every January, I clean it out. I shred things I don't need to keep, and everything else is filed in a file folder marked with the year. I also have a filing cabinet with files for appliance booklets, insurance info, jewelry receipts, etc. (It's all more long-term items.)
Oooo, have you ever heard of FlyLady (www.flylady.net)? This month is all about working on paper clutter - you should definitely go to the website and check out some of the awesome tips. Completely free, and works SO WELL for a LOT of people
I stink at it...LOL
Here's what I do. I put everything on the kitchen table. It stays there for a few days (weeks?) until I get sick of it and move it to a pile on the dresser in the bedroom, the file organizer on the desk, the desk itself, an unused space on the bookshelf or even on top of the microwave. Get creative! :-P
Obviously my paper clutter is out of control, so I liked reading these tips that the others left! LOL
Like you, I need some tips for the paper clutter, too. It is overrunning our house. I really liked the comment you got about scanning everything and then throwing the original away. The only thing I would check out before doing this is if you would need an original rather than a copy for any reason, like taxes, but I think it would really cut down on the clutter. You would just need to make sure you have a good plan for backing up your computer files so you don't lose everything in case of a computer crash.
We shred and then bury the kids in the resulting paper debris. Oh, and we make fun paper wigs and hula skirts too.
I just realized how poorly I phrased the above comment. We don't really shred our kids and bury them. We do shred our paper stuff, though, and then toss it at the kids to play with.
I didn't even catch that! It's a good thing you don't shred your kids though,that is kind of frowned upon.
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