Organizing Tips & Tricks: Organizing Paper

STEP ONE: Trash Only
Do this stage quickly. This is a no thinking stage. Throw out the trash, only trash.

• Junk mail.
• Envelopes. Never, I mean, NEVER put a letter or document back into the envelope! Once it’s out of the envelope, throw the envelope out. Unless of course you need to save the postage date for legal reasons.

STEP TWO: The Easy Stuff
Categorize ‘like’ items together.

• Staple documents together that go together. When dealing with piles of paper it’s easier to deal with them as a unit.
• Magazines / Newspapers—All Sports Illustrated together, all SF Chronicle’s together, all Architectural Digest…..
• Catalogs—Pottery Barn, Victoria Secret, Macy’s………its endless, isn’t it?? I know you’re going to roll your eyes when I tell you I sat down for 15 minutes and called all of them and had them stopped. Think of all the trees you’re going to save by doing this. Ohh, and the money you’ll save by not being tempted to buy stuff you don’t need.
• Bills to be paid—In order of their due date. Side note: Have you thought about going paperless? Ask your bank about this. It’s very, very simple.
• Bills that have been paid–Some need to be filed for tax purposes and some thrown out.
• Receipts—See January 2016 newsletter for the How To’s of filing receipts. January 2016 Place It Newsletter
• Coupons—First, throw out the ones that aren’t valid, then put the valid ones in an envelope. I put this envelope in my car so they’re always handy.
• Documents & Updates from a variety of companies—Only you can decide if you need to keep these. Again, many financial institutions will send this info to you electronically.

STEP THREE: Create a filing system, or not. Yes, I said “or not”!

Look for my Newsletter on how to create a simple filing system. That is if you decide to create a filing system.