Whether it is the mail being delivered to your door, paperwork brought home from school and work, medical forms, magazines, receipts and more, paper piles continue to grow on a daily basis. Here are a few ideas to lessen that pileup of paper and keep it manageable before it gets the better of you.
1. Include it in your schedule and set aside a certain amount of time each day to process paperwork. Open and sort mail on a daily basis. Immediately recycle anything you do not need. Keep and handle all important documents in one designated area. Divide the papers into main categories of action whether it is to Read, Pay, File or simply Do.
2. Make decisions when it comes to your paperwork. Do not put papers into a big pile and say you will deal with it later. Decide to do something with it now and take action, whether it is to read it, pay it, file it, do it or toss it.
3. Computers have not lessened the amount of paper clutter. In fact, in many cases, they have increased it. People are printing out a lot of things that do not have to be printed. If it is not critical, do not print it out. That information will more than likely still be online to reference again.
4. Use a binder system, such as the Get Organized Now! Easy Organizer. This organizer holds all the important information you need to keep on hand in one handy location. Binders are a great way to organize many types of paperwork that you regularly need to reference. Tabs and sheet protectors are just two of the items used in conjunction with binders that help to organize all your information making it easy to locate.
5. Create a message taking system. Instead of having scraps of paper and Post-it notes all over the place, use a spiral notebook for posting messages. Even if you do scribble a note or number somewhere else, you can transfer it directly to the notebook.
6. Check with the IRS, as well as your accountant and attorney, to find out how long to keep certain documents. Before you put the documents into storage, mark them with an expiration date, if they have one. There are some documents you do need to keep permanently, like deeds for one. When you go through your files in the future to purge documents, you can then toss the documents that have expired.
7. Evaluate your current magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Consider keeping only the subscriptions that you read on a regular basis. Donate old magazines to senior centers, shelters or doctors offices after you have read them. Keep in mind that more and more magazines these days carry many of their articles, if not the whole issue, online.
1. Include it in your schedule and set aside a certain amount of time each day to process paperwork. Open and sort mail on a daily basis. Immediately recycle anything you do not need. Keep and handle all important documents in one designated area. Divide the papers into main categories of action whether it is to Read, Pay, File or simply Do.
2. Make decisions when it comes to your paperwork. Do not put papers into a big pile and say you will deal with it later. Decide to do something with it now and take action, whether it is to read it, pay it, file it, do it or toss it.
3. Computers have not lessened the amount of paper clutter. In fact, in many cases, they have increased it. People are printing out a lot of things that do not have to be printed. If it is not critical, do not print it out. That information will more than likely still be online to reference again.
4. Use a binder system, such as the Get Organized Now! Easy Organizer. This organizer holds all the important information you need to keep on hand in one handy location. Binders are a great way to organize many types of paperwork that you regularly need to reference. Tabs and sheet protectors are just two of the items used in conjunction with binders that help to organize all your information making it easy to locate.
5. Create a message taking system. Instead of having scraps of paper and Post-it notes all over the place, use a spiral notebook for posting messages. Even if you do scribble a note or number somewhere else, you can transfer it directly to the notebook.
6. Check with the IRS, as well as your accountant and attorney, to find out how long to keep certain documents. Before you put the documents into storage, mark them with an expiration date, if they have one. There are some documents you do need to keep permanently, like deeds for one. When you go through your files in the future to purge documents, you can then toss the documents that have expired.
7. Evaluate your current magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Consider keeping only the subscriptions that you read on a regular basis. Donate old magazines to senior centers, shelters or doctors offices after you have read them. Keep in mind that more and more magazines these days carry many of their articles, if not the whole issue, online.
Thanks to Get Organized Now.
