When I started organizing people’s homes in College Station during my last semester at Texas A & M, I was surprised to find that many clients were most interested in tackling the paperwork they felt was consuming their homes. They kept stacks of it: bills, flyers, notes, invitations, newspapers, magazines, and letters. It was overwhelming to them, so it received little positive attention. But I aimed to fix that.
Conquering paperwork in the home is all about a system. For every piece of paper that finds its way through the door, it has to be addressed and handled. To start, set up a station, a specific location for this to occur. Streamline the paper trail right into a home office or computer station in the kitchen, back entry, wide hallway, or laundry room. Avoid the living room and the bedrooms. At this station, you need the tools to handle your paperwork, which can include magazine files, trays, bins, notebooks, and a trashcan or paper shredder.
Let mail, correspondence from school, receipts, and any other paperwork start here. A tray or basket the size of a newspaper is a great thing to have to start a pile, because you will not always have the time to immediately sort when you bring in the mail. This tray should not be too deep, though, as this is meant to be a temporary holding spot. The next step is to sort. Magazine files that are labeled “To File” and “To Do” make this a simple process. Each piece of paper a) requires further action (pay a bill), b) requires filing (receipt for tax purposes), or c) can be thrown away. By doing this initial sort, you quickly reduce your bulk and keep things from accumulating by throwing out what is not needed and by dividing what’s left into two quick-decision categories. If more categories are applicable for your needs, then add those as well. Having a decorative bulletin board or magnetic dry erase board in the area is a good spot to store invitations and notes after you have added their information to your calendar or planner.
I am not a huge fan of a filing cabinet for home use; I feel the same goal can be accomplished in a smaller space. I use one inch notebooks for my filing instead. Each notebook has a labeled spine and cover, and the categories can be as broad as Banking, Medical, Insurance, Shopping, Credit Card, Cell Phone, etc. Set up a notebook system that fits your needs. As receipts and paid bills accumulate, their paperwork goes into their corresponding notebook. At the end of the year, each notebook’s contents are automatically in chronological order, and I transfer each set to a decorative file box. I have seven of these boxes that represent seven years for tax purposes. This all takes up only two shelves of a standard bookcase. My consistent, rotating system pretty much runs itself.
To maximize your paper processing, don’t settle for run-of-the-mill. Lead your paper trail to a new level of organized sorting and storage.
DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star January 30th.
