Paper management Archives

Piles of Paper and no system in sight?

January 27, 2022 by Heather Filed Under: Organize, Organizing Projects, Paper management, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources, Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Does paperwork pile around you at home and office? Piles of Paper might mean unopened mail, and papers can lead to cluttered horizontal surfaces. There are many reasons for paperwork to pile up. Getting to the cause can help you create a functional solution. Conquoring these piles can be overwhelming or totally rewarding! In this post, I share an easy first step to Purge the Paper Piles.

Piles of Paper might feel beyond our control but they don’t have to

Many organizers, including Marie Kondo, recommend gathering everything by category. In this case papers. Instead, we are going to start differently. Before you gather all your paper piles its helpful to consider and identify how you got to into this situation. I don’t have those answers for you. I can share what I’ve learned from my working observations with clients, friends and family.

A “Trigger Event” such as an injury, death, move or birth put you off course. This event caused you to go totally off track and loose your system or maintenance of it.
Maybe you had a system started, but that system wasn’t a good fit and you were unable to maintain it. This is often the case when people feel they “should do” something a certain way or learned a system on the job, from a family member or friend. This can be incredibly frustrating and lead to feelings of shame.
Or maybe you never learned how to create or maintain a paperwork system, it’s certainly not taught in school or even at home (in most cases)!

We all have our breaking points. There are more urgent, fun and important things than dealing with a paper piles that seem so unimportant. We push them aside and make a lot of excuses for not getting around to them. Day after day, week after week and sometimes for years. When you get to this point, it’s easy to see how overwhelm creeps in and we don’t where to begin.

When we fall behind we tend to ignore what is present because we are worried about what is past.

Instead of going back through everything in the past, start where you are. In my experience if you lost every single paper in your house, there is very little that can’t be fairly easily replaced. Just ask almost any millennial, they live with very few papers. Most of what we need to keep can be replaced with a few phone calls and emails.

Before gathering everything in your home/office, sit down and open your most current paper pile of mail, receipts etc. Consider what mail and papers you have coming in. What categories do they fit in? Here are some general and sub categories.

Household-Utilities, improvements, reciepts, insurance etc
Medical-You & your family members
Vehicles-loans, DMV/MVA info, insurance
Financial-Banking, credit cards, investments, taxes
Professional-continuing education, employment, resume etc

Make a list of YOUR categories. Don’t think about what you had in the past or what you “should have,” start simple. As you sort, consider going paperless with utilities, insurance, bank statements or anything you can easily access online. Consolodate sub categories into one general category. For example, one file for all utilities (to keep track of account numbers etc). Simplifying your incoming mail and filing will help create a system that’s easier to maintain.

Simple systems work best. Over-organized systems are cumbersome to maintain.

Before you purg past paperwork, create a “staging” area and gather your supplies:

A file box or two depending on how much you have. I prefer any that hold hanging folders and still close, like these. Bankers boxes will work, just don’t use the hanging files
File folders-new or used, different colors or one color. Don’t buy them unless you need to.
Hanging folders are optional but they do make the job easier (recycled is fine)
Sticky notes for temporarily labeling categories
Pens or pencils (pencils for starting, sharpies or labels for permanent labels)
Labels or a Label maker

Now pick up and begin to sort through a pile to see how it fits into your new simple system. Depending on how long this first step took, you can estimate how much time you will need to sort and purge all your Paper Piles! If you don’t have a good system for your mail when it comes in the house, check out this post on Creating a Practical Command Center. Looking for a stylish, yet practical file cabinet or container? Check out my inspiring round up here.

*Some people may prefer a flat filing system like the drawers below or binders, but for the purpose of purging I will focus on file boxes of some sort.

Paperless organizing; Going digital

January 10, 2022 by Heather Filed Under: Digital Organizing, Organize, Paper management, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Are you digital with some, or all of your “paperwork”? Get started with paperless organizing; going digital might help you cut down on paper clutter. For example, some people try to be totally digital and do almost everything on their computer, phone etc. Others are totally uncomfortable and will never go paperless. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

Ready to go digital?

You might still be a little tentative, that’s okay. Dip your toes in the water and acclimate as you go.

8 Questions to assess if your ready to go paperless (less paper)

Answer these questions to learn how comfortable you are with technology. Keep track of how many of the following you answer yes to.

I read books on my kindle or another electronic reader.
More of my shopping is done online than in stores.
I access account like my banks, utilities and others I use frequently.
Paperwork is piling up everywhere!
My calendar is digital (on my phone, computer or both).
I check my emails regularly (more than once a day).
I’m on social media like Facebook, Twitter etc.
I read blogs or other media online to stay informed and connected.

Digital Novice or Paperless Pro? Where do you fall in the Tech Savvy Spectrum?

If you answered yes to 3-5 of these then you are definitely ready to go digital, at least partially!

The most frequent concern I hear is the issue of security. Your personal information could be stolen via many online sources. Assessing your adversity to risk will help you determine which accounts you are more comfortable with going digital. Large financial institutions and municipal utility companies have comprehensive systems in place to protect your identity, but nothing is fullproof! The great thing about going digital is that if you do encounter a problem with your account security, you will be able to respond to it more quickly. Which’s often the best defense!

Where to start? Based on your answers to the questions above, pick one or two areas to add to your “digital” workspace.

Getting started with digital organizing:

Go to the business website, create an online account and save your username and password in a secure location.
Go through a “tutorial” or just click around until you are familiar with the basic layout of the pages. Look for “tabs” or hyperlinks that will help you navigate the different menus and tools.
Find your profile and settings. Often they are near one another and settings sometimes look like a little gear wheel. Check your personal information in your profile to be sure it’s all correct.
“Go paperless”-this is usually under settings and you can choose all or nothing depending on the company.
Check your email and “verify” your account (sometimes you must do this before you can even log in and navigate around).
Check your account regularly and download statements or pay bills online. In some cases you can set up a bank account to do this, in other cases (financial institutions) you can link utilities and other bills to be paid to your checking or savings accounts.

Site specific resources are usually available for setting up varius online accounts, such as tutorials or videos. In general, most banks, financial firms, utilities and phone companies have probably sent you “go paperless” inserts in your snail mail. If you have one of those handy, that’s a great place to start! This simple guide to paperless organizing will help you to determine if your ready to go digital. Try setting up a digital account or two to reduce the paper clutter in your home or office. Once you’ve transformed your paper clutter to digital, keep you digital files organized with my helpful guide to creating a digital file structure.

Essential Documents for Everyone

August 19, 2021 by Heather Filed Under: Organize, Paper management, Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 2 Comments

Being prepared for the unexpected means having essential documents (and copies of them) in order and easy to find. Some people call these their Vital Documents. Whatever you call them they are really important! I recently learned that 98% of all South Carolina residents have no will! If that’s your situation and you don’t know where to start, let me know and I can guide you in the right direction!

Absolutely Essential Documents-The Short List

[Read more…]

Successful paper sorting

March 10, 2020 by Heather Filed Under: Organize, Paper management, Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 1 Comment

A couple weeks ago, we identified three steps to get paper piles under control, this week we will create a simple paper sorting system! If you missed that post, please go back and spend about 30 min’s preparing for these next steps. To recap, we start by identifying what overwhelms us about paper piles and how or why things are so out of control. This is a mental step but feel free to journal about it if that helps! Next, we list the categories of files and papers we need to keep. Finally we create a working space or staging area where we can spread out with our supplies gathered.

Many people suggest the first step to paper sorting is to gather all your papers in one place. I don’t start with this because I believe before we dive into paper sorting, we need to identify how we got here and where we want to be! I’ve written about setting intentions in several past posts. This step can be easy to overlook and seem like it’s unimportant, but it can make all the difference in creating lasting change.

[bctt tweet=”Setting our intention is a valuable part of creating successful and lasting change. ” username=”hkpowerstudio”]

Now, we are ready to gather all our papers to our working area. If you have a lot of papers in an existing office, it might make sense to start in that area. Gather everything to a table or desk where you can go through your stacks (or files or bags) and begin paper sorting into categories. In a prior post, I go through several kinds of filing systems, including the Tickler, binders and color coding. Before you commit to one filing system, take a look at some alternatives. This paper sorting process will work for any type of filing system!

*A quick note about shredding and sensitive papers. If you have a lot of papers to process at once, hold off on shredding and put papers to be shredded into a LABELED bag or box. If a piece of paper only has your name and address, you might want one of these great ID Blocker stamps so you can mark out your info and recycle.

With all your supplies and your staging area set up, let’s begin paper sorting!

Gathering papers is like a treasure hunt, you probably have papers hanging around over the place. Don’t forget to look in the kitchen, bedroom (nightstand drawers or surfaces), dining room, office or den and your car!
With your list of categories nearby, put each of your categories on a sticky note. If you come across a category you don’t have, just add another sticky note! We will review later. Don’t forget an “Action or To-Do” category and a “Delegate or refer to someone else” category. Common filing mistakes I see are overly complicated or very vague systems. See this post to review your categories.
Pick up your first stack and begin to sort into recycle, shred or one of your categories. If you have a lot of categories it can help to set up hanging folders in an empty box or file drawer. I prefer to start with a blank slate and work through old systems and stacks, sorting into the newly created system.

Continue the paper sorting process for a set amount of time, taking breaks every 30-60 min’s. If you’re unsure about items, set them into an “undecided” area to look back through later. Though I can’t advise on what specific papers you will need to keep, a helpful retention guide is available on the IRS website. For anything related to taxes and finances, you may also want to check with your accountant.

Going digital might be a consideration for information you can access online. If you’re not comfortable but want to try it out, pick one category like “Utilities” and begin to convert each account to paperless and see how that goes! If you like it, consider other categories such as banking, investments and insurance.

Once your through the paper piles, that’s it! The only thing left to do is label your final categories and make sure your files are in the drawers, binders or the file box you want to keep them in. There are some downright gorgeous file cabinets in a variety of styles, check out my previous round up here. Now that you have an awesome system in place, maintain it daily or weekly so you don’t end up with a backload of piles ever again!

Creating Intentional SPACE

February 25, 2020 by Heather Filed Under: Organizing Projects, Paper management, Systems & Techniques 1 Comment

Creating Intentional SPACE is something that most Professional Organizers do regularly with their clients. Many of us use the SPACE system or something similar when helping clients with the organizing process. This system and the acronym was created by Professional Organizer and Author Julie Morgenstern and it’s a tried and true system that I follow with all my client organizing projects. I’m happy to share how what the acronym stands for below because I find it can be useful in understanding the steps and process that can help lead to a more organized and intentional SPACE.

Sort-This begins by gathering everything in one category together. By doing this you know what ALL you have and can move on to the next step.

Purge-Only when you know what you have can you start to make decisions about what to keep. Purging is really DECIDING what is needed or if you can get rid of it (donate, recycle, trash).

Assign-Now that you have decided what to keep, give it a home.

Contain-You know what you’ve got and where it will live, what would make keeping things in order easier? Do you need containers? Take measurements, make labels…commit these items to live in this space.

Equalize-What this really means is Evaluate…after living with your newly organized system, take the time after a week, a month and beyond to make adjustments as needed. This means setting an intention to maintain the system (and from time to time going back through the SPACE process).

Before you even begin this process, I believe it’s equally important and valuable to set your intention (my WORD for 2019) or reason/goal for the space! Most of us have heard the statement: nature abhors a vacuum (horror vacui) by Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides that a void or vacuum, in nature, cannot exist, so be careful what you create, or what you leave open…which can quickly get filled with clutter (in your mind and your physical space).

Once you decide, set your intention and go through the SPACE process of implementing this system, use it to support your effort to succeed in maintaining as well! Organizing isn’t a one and done process but it is a Process that’s worth investing in and worth maintaining. How’s your SPACE? Will it be filled by something of your choosing or with clutter? Need help going through this process? Please fill out the “Help me Get Organized” form.

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