It is possible to regain control of your paper clutter!
If you have paper clutter about your home, you’ll know how it makes you feel. Your home always feels messy, it’s stressful trying to find what you need and you risk missing important events or deadlines.
There is no denying we live in a digital world, but physical paperwork remains a fact of life. Letters, leaflets, tickets, manuals, kids artwork, official documents and other papers continue to come into our home every day. This paper clutter can soon build up, gathering on surfaces and getting in our way.
If this sounds familiar, you’ll know how it can make you feel!
If we don’t keep a handle on this paperwork deluge it can quickly have negative consequences for our home and our health. Messy unsightly piles can cause stress and embarrassment when visitors come around, and clutter can affect our ability to focus on tasks and our work. Plus, we risk impacting our family, finances and health if we end up missing appointments or payments when we can’t find the documents we need.
If your paper clutter is out of control, know that you’re not alone.
And, with some work (it’s well worth doing, I promise) it’s possible to get it back under control using my simple system to manage your paperwork.
5 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Paper Clutter
1. Prepare
Gather your paperwork together from all over the house and bring together on one clear surface where you have a bit of room. If you’ve built up a lot it may be easier to do this on the floor.
2. Quickly dispose
Recycle (shred personal details) all envelopes, leaflets, old notes and documents you don’t need. Any documents you were holding temporarily but are now finished with can also go. This step will thin out the pile of paperwork, reduce any overwhelm and enable you to give thought to the remaining documents.
3. Sort into loose categories
Organise your remaining documents into piles using the following categories:
- Action: These are the documents that you are currently using or will need soon (e.g. forms you need to complete, letters that you need to take to appointments, I also keep name tags for kids items in my Action section as I always need to label something )
- Keep long-term This pile will contain these would be documents that you need to refer to again in future or, that you can’t easily be replaced (including Identity documents such as passports and, birth, adoption, or marriage certificates; education and employment documents; important information and contracts related to your car, house, finances and health.) If you’re unsure of whether you should hold on to something, do so for now and get advice
- Memories should be managed separately. Whilst you may wish to keep some school reports, children’s artwork, personal letters etc, make sure that you store these separately so that they don’t hinder your search for important documents when you need them.
4. Create your action folder
The idea is to create a holding space for all of the paperwork you’ll need soon. The things you put in here should only be there temporarily, until you use them or no longer need them, and then they should be thrown out or stored in your long-term filing system.
Many people like to use a letter rack in the entrance hall, a noticeboard, in-tray in the home office or magazine file in the kitchen. Alternatively you may not need to keep the document but instead can save a screen shot to your phone or cloud drive, or note the details in your calendar, a digital notebook or a secure filing app. Whatever works for you!
Whatever you choose to use, keep it somewhere you can easily access when you acquire new paperwork to deal with, and where you won’t forget to deal with what you’ve put in there!
5. Long-term filing
Now it’s time to create homes for all of the paperwork that you need to keep. You may want to invest in a safe or off-site storage for some important documents.
Take a moment to consider which documents you need to keep but aren’t necessary as hard copies stored by you. For example, you may be able to download some paperwork for your utility bills, subscriptions, online purchases, bank statements from your accounts as and when you want them. Don’t forget to get copies before you close any accounts if you may need them later.
Whether you store documents in hard copy or electronic form, it’s important to review them periodically and dispose of anything that you no longer need to keep. You might do this when you add a document; 1 in, 1 out.
You may have heard that bank statements should be kept for six years, but Martin Lewis now recommends you keep them for longer than this. You can read his thoughts on the subject here Don’t throw bank statements away after six years
Reduce your physical paper storage by going digital
If you want to keep physical storage to a minimum, you could consider filing original documents you’ll need for evidence in a concertina folder, filing box, or safe and digitise the rest. One example of a digital filing cabinet solution is the FYIO app.
How to manage your paperwork day to day
Now you’ve regained control of your paper clutter, it’s important to keep on top of it or it will only build up again. The key is to manage it quickly and as soon as it comes into your home wherever possible.
Here is my quick and easy process for how to do it.
- Dispose! -Recycle/shred anything you know you don’t need. If you put it down and come back to it later, you’ll handle it more than once which wastes your time
- Do it quickly! -If it will take 2 minutes, take action immediately – book the appointment, complete the return slip, schedule the bill for payment
- Schedule -Diarise any task that will take more than a few mins and store any related paperwork for easy access
- Give it a home -Pop it into your action folder or into your long term filing system!
If you loved this article you may also be interested in: Discover how the Apps I love could make you better organised.
Paperwork can feel overwhelming because we usually have a lot of it. If you’d like help with an initial sort, setting up your filing system and reviewing your paperwork or advice on storage options, contact me for practical advice and support.
Note: get advice if you are unsure about whether you need to keep a document and for how long.
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