How do you organize paper?

[crl]

I'm terrible about paper. I end up with piles and piles. Tell me what you do to organize paper and prevent piles, please. Assume I'm an idiot, so tell me about whether you use a file cabinet or file box or desk drawer or??? And how long you keep various kinds of paper, etc.

Thank you!
Catherine

[KrisM]

My office desk is in my kitchen, which has helped me tremendously. It's much more inviting to sit and go through paper during the day than at night in a room by myself . We moved it there because the table was too small for 5 and now we eat at the counter or in the dining room.

Anyhow, on my desk is a Desk Apprentice from Staples. I have hanging folders in it: bills to pay, things to file, coupons, receipts, coming soon (invitations, school things), and one folder per person in the house for things that will be kept and just need to go to the right place (certificates, etc).

There are also slots on the sides and I limit my magazines to what fits in those slots. If I get a new one and it's full, one has to go.

I try to go through mail right away, but if I don't get it until we're coming in from the bus stop, it sits on top of the DA until evening and I do it then. I go through the school stuff the day it comes in and I fill out/sign anything that I need to immediately and it goes back in the folder and into the backpack.

I have a household notebook, but just couldn't figure out how to use it last year and I'm trying something new this year, but don't really know what yet.

Every now and then, I do have a pile of papers and just spend a bit sorting them to where they go.

Also, each kid has a drawer in the desk and school projects, special toys, etc go in their drawer and when the drawer is full, we go through and purge together. They get to pick what we save, although at times I keep something they said to toss.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Right now I just have different places for my piles and that helps. School or camp stuff is in one spot, bills in another, things I have to do are on the dining room table, my PTA type paperwork is somewhere, homework and old school work are in another. Simply separating it out reduces the confusion and keeps me more organized. I do dream of a giant bulletin board but if it is like my fridge it'll get cluttered and out of date.

eta- I sort mail right away and recycle stuff we don't want or need. Often I keep catalogs in the recycling bin until I want to read them.
Beth

[katydid1971]

I buy those folders with pockets (they are always super cheap in Aug sometimes free) and have one for each thing I need to reference or file often like School Stuff, DD's Medical Files, DH's work papers (there are a couple of those) etc. I keep those at my computer desk. Then I have a file cabinet that has thing I don't really need very often but still need to keep, like owner's manuals, warrenty info, Insurance information, home information. Its not a perfect system but it works ok. The most important thing for me is to put stuff away often so you don't have piles. If I get piles I get overwhelmed feeling and I get stressed.

[wendibird22]

I sort mail each day so that stuff goes right out to the recycle box. Then once a week when I pay bills I go through the paper I kept for the week. All this lives in a desk drawer in my kitchen. So every Sat or Sun I take the pile out of the drawer, pay bills and throw away the bill, and then either act on another item (like an RSVP needed) or file it away (pictures, kids artwork, etc.). I used to save everything (bank statements, credit card bills, etc), but now I a)get rid of it once it's paid or b)switch to online statements when possible. I have much less paper now that I don't get a hard copy of most bills or bank statements and I don't need to worry about saving them because I can look up the old ones online.

[wellyes]

If you have a scanner you could put all your paper online or on your desktop with Evernote. It's a nifty free app which enables you to search the text of a scanned (or even photographed) document.

[niccig]

I have a number of different strategies depending on what paper it is.

I have a cabinet in the kitchen. Top shelf behind the doors has different plastic containers. One holds ring binder folders. I have one folder for my papers and things I want to keep eg. my gift certificates for nail salon.DS has one for his papers, and there's an accordion file for his school stuff like class directory, school handbook. I also have a House Notebook - I'll put in there things like the city harzardous waste details, ideas for kitchen redo,any house project I'm currently working on and need papers for.

I have a hanging file that is mangetic on a magnetic board - I put in there DS's school stuff that I have to keep for upcoming events, his soccer schedule etc. On the noticeboard I pin up birthday invitaions, reminders to take dog to vet etc.

I have a desktop file that has hanging files for bills to pay, to file, to do etc. This worked well when I regularly filed things, but I haven't, so I need to either be better about that, or do something else. It sits on top of the cabinet, and I put it away underneath if I want it out of the way when people are over.

I have a filing cabinet. In the front is an accordion file and I file everything from the desktop file. The Accordion file is for things like credit card bills,phone bills etc. We claim some of this on taxes, and it's easier to keep it separate like this to work out at tax time. I know some other people file by month eg. all Jan. bills in one envelope. The accordion file is removed each year and replaced with an empty one. Old one goes in file box in garage to keep for 7 years. The filing cabinet hanging files keep permanent papers like house/car/medical etc.

My system has fallen down as I wasn't regularly filing from the desktop file - it's full to bulging right now. It's on my list to get it all file and then either set a regular filign time, or file things as a bill gets paid - my house isn't that big so I can take the few bills to the filing cabinet pretty easily.

[SnuggleBuggles]

If you have a scanner you could put all your paper online or on your desktop with Evernote. It's a nifty free app which enables you to search the text of a scanned (or even photographed) document.

it! I did that with something recently but didn't think to do it with the clutter!

Beth

[crl]

Thank you for all the good ideas!

Catherine

[ThreeofUs]

One pile in DR on side table, with a big box in the library that we periodically dump pile into. We sort twice a year.

Seriously, we had no ability to control the paper any more after getting pg with DS2. This way, we know where all the paper is and once a year when we look for something we can find it pretty quickly.

We tried getting more organized, but honestly they never worked. So we decided to make our default system our "organization" and it's worked well for the last few years.