Papers in your home might include:
◊bills and statements
◊mail
◊policies (e.g. insurance)
◊clippings from newspapers or
magazines such as recipes, tips, products of interest
◊children's report cards, artwork, permission slips, medical
records and more
◊shopping receipts
◊shopping lists
◊holiday cards
◊magazines (from subscriptions)
◊items you printed while browsing the Web
So what to do with it all?
FIRST designate an ongoing workspace for handling paper matters. This could be a
room in your home that serves as a home office or it could merely be a corner of
a room in your home. It could even be a closet that houses your workspace. Open
it to reveal it. Close it when you're done.
SECOND, get the right tools for this space. What you'll need here in this room
or work space is a desktop surface. This is where you'll sort and handle
paperwork.
♦This could be a full size desk if you have the luxury of having space
for one, or a smaller
Mission Secretary Desk
 . It could simply be a
Writing Table
 . It could be a
Bill Payer's Desk
 .
These come in small cozy sizes and have surfaces that fold down when not in use
to make them even more compact. It could be a simple and quite ordinary
four-foot folding table, which is quite inexpensive if your budget is tight.
You'll find computer desks, secretary desks and writing desks
here:
♦Of course, you'll need a
chair
too, preferably one that's the right height for
you at the table so you can work comfortably. Again, if you're on a budget, you
could always roll in a dining room chair or kitchen stool when needed. Put it
back in its rightful home when not needed.
♦You'll need a
file cabinet for storing "permanent" paperwork (which you'll try
to limit.). Some two drawer vertical file cabinets are short enough to roll
under your desk or table. Otherwise, keep your file cabinet next to the table or
desk. One thing you do NOT want to do is to keep your file cabinet in another
room. If it's not convenient and handy to use, you won't do so. You'll pile, not
file. Keep your file cabinet near your work space.
♦Get a
paper shredder. Crosscut or diamond cut paper shredders are more secure
than strip cut shredders. Be sure it includes a waste basket beneath the
shredder.
♦Also, get a separate small waste basket. Again, both of these items should be
placed permanently in this work space.
♦A simple
desktop organizer
 can hold all the office supplies you need for
handling paperwork. Check out the ones that operate like Lazy Susans meaning
they spin in place with crevices on all sides to hold your supplies.
♦Likely
these office supplies will include basic items like pens, pencils, tape,
scissors, stapler, stamps, envelopes, return address stickers or stamp and
perhaps a small pad of note paper. That's all you really need to handle your
paperwork.
♦If you use larger items like legal pads or 9 X 12 envelopes, perhaps even plain
paper, get some plastic stackable paper trays. These cost just a few dollars and
can hold these items in one vertical stack on the back corner of your desktop
surface.
Organize.com sells
letter paper size trays
 in
vibrant colors like cobalt blue, yellow and green. They also sell a black
Paper Stacker Tray
 made to fit 12 X 12 paper.
♦You may want a few extras of these trays to add to the stack to use for
sorting incoming mail, outgoing mail, catalogues, school papers, etc. If you
have a larger work surface, you can get pretty with some rectangular tabletop
wicker or wire baskets or paper trays.
♦Another thing you might find helpful when organizing paperwork is binders (loose
leaf notebooks) along with some top loading sheet protectors, slash pocket
folders and a three-hole puncher. Get two sturdy bookends to hold the binders in
place on the back of your desk or table.
♦Binders are an alternative to putting permanent items in your file cabinet. For
instance, instead of filing paper statements you're keeping, store them in the
binders by month or by category. Binders also can hold your magazine clippings,
recipes, shopping lists and other odds and ends. They can even hold your
children's artwork if you reduce it on a copy machine to size (and then discard
the oversized original).
♦Label the outside of the binder. Use a table of
contents if you need one. And use tab section dividers in the binder if it's
helpful to you.
♦Finally, invest in a vertical sorter. This is something you can use to hold
pending files or your tickler files.
This Vertical
Sorter
 above
is sold by Stacks and Stacks.
THIRD, set up SYSTEMS to manage your incoming paperwork that work for you. Paper
is not going to stop coming, even in this age of technology and electronic
gadgets. At least not in your lifetime! So streamline the process of paper
entering your home.
♦Set up the tickler file mentioned to handle timely paperwork. This could be one
manila folder for each day of the month (31) and one for each month (12). What
you do is put items with deadlines in the designated folder. Items that need
attention this month go in the 31 day folders. Move items forward to these
folders from the 12 monthly folders ongoing as needed. This could be bills to
pay, paperwork to read and sign, birthday or holiday card lists to handle, etc.
♦Store the tickler file in the "vertical file". A vertical file is an office
accessory (just as a desktop organizer is).
♦If it works better for you, keep
"hot files" in the vertical file with specific labels such as bills due, xyz
project, etc.
♦The trick is to ONLY keep stuff your actively working on or that
needs active attention in the vertical file on your desktop. Paper is a big dust
collector anyway. You don't want to store any paper loose that's not in active
use (or very soon to be in active usage).
♦That means other paperwork
not in active use should go in one of your other three accessory
purchases: The file cabinet (or the binders), the paper shredder or the trash
can.
♦The file cabinet is for paperwork you're keeping long-term but that's not in
active usage.
♦The paper shredder is for any paper you can discard that contains personal
details or financial information, such as credit card offers and banking
paperwork.
♦The trash can is for any paperwork that you do not need that you would not mind
reading about on the front page of your newspaper if a "dumpster diver"
retrieved it.
♦If you can sort paper into these three areas as it arrives in your home, great.
But if you cannot get into that habit, put incoming paperwork into one of the
desktop baskets or plastic paper trays. Then set a time weekly (perhaps even
twice a week depending on how quickly paper enters your home) to sort and handle
these papers.
♦Some of the trays or baskets could be for other family members incoming
paperwork too or paperwork they need you to handle. Label the outside of the
trays and baskets.
♦And make sure family members know the rules about processing
their own basket of paperwork ongoing and/or about dispersing paper to your
other paper trays and baskets.
♦Also make sure everyone heads straight to this
home office work surface to deposit ALL incoming paperwork.
♦When putting items into the file cabinets, don't file paperwork that you "might
need someday". Only file things you KNOW you need to keep like IRS documents.
♦If you have a clipping from a store catalogue
of a product that you MIGHT order this year,
put it in the hot file or tickler file. When you get to that day or month, if
it's still there, trash it.
♦Of course, if you can find a piece of paperwork elsewhere (e.g. on the Web or on
an electronic file format you own such as a CD), you probably don't need the
paper copy.
♦Same goes for timely information.
For instance, saving two-year old blank tax
forms and directions serves little purpose for most people.
♦The trick to handling paper at home is to specifically say WHY you need to keep
the paper and for HOW LONG or WHAT you need to do with that piece of paper by
WHEN. When you start giving ambiguous answers to these questions, you really
need to either 1) learn the correct answer and do it; or 2) realize that perhaps
you don't need to keep that piece of paper.
In the end, you'll find very little paper that you MUST keep, a lot of paper
that you WANT to keep, and very little paper that you really NEED to keep.
FINALLY, try a few extra tips to catch up
with your existing paper piles.
♦For
instance, start with the newest paper. This helps ensure you don't overlook
something timely, such as paying the electric bill next week.
♦Also
gather all the paper that's dispersed around your home now and bring it to this
workspace. After you "catch up" with the newest paperwork AND set streamlined
systems for processing incoming paperwork, then spend some time with the old
paper piles, using the same rules as you did with the newest paper. Chances are
that most of the old paper will find a good home in your waste basket or paper
shredder.
Before you know it you'll have no more major piles of paper
AND you'll know where to find any relevant paperwork in your home. It's really
that easy to organize home office paper piles!
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