In our June 1st post we talked about organizing your digital clutter. We may have put the cart before the horse there, because today we are going to talk about how to sort and store papers --and what to store digitally, now that you know how :)--. Although we are heading towards a paperless society, we are not there yet. How do you stay on top of it? Try these tips; purchase an expandable file folder to hide it all, keeping clutter down. Sort your mail the moment you retrieve it. It’s so easy to do a quick sort of bills, junk mail, and correspondence to attend to. File the bills to be paid in one pocket of your expandable folder, and correspondence to respond to in another. For that newly purchased coffee maker or phone, temporarily put the instruction manual in another pocket of the file folder until you learn the ropes of this new toy. Once you feel confident that you can file this away, decide if you really need to keep it at all. It might be nice to see the instructions on how to change the vacuum belt, but check online and see if these instructions are available in a downloadable PDF format. If they are, save them to your computer in an easily recognizable file named “Instruction Manuals” and recycle the paper manual. In addition, save your take-out menus in one section, (although many of these can be stored on your computer too) and coupons in another. Other paper clutter items are magazines and catalogs. I’d love to keep them all, but once I’ve identified favorite recipes or articles, I’ll check for the online version, download it, and save it on my computer, then recycle the magazine. If it’s catalog you want to order from, go and bookmark the item on your computer for a later date. But we got off on the digital tangent again…so easy to do as it’s such an easy, magnificent solution! This expandable file folder can be used for many “temporary” things; for example, in the front pocket of mine right now you will find the paint chip color sample I want to paint the dining room. Many of the papers coming into your home are from the kids. Label a file in your expandable folder for each child and place important papers there. If it’s over-sized artwork that has dutifully done its time on the refrigerator door, purchase a large plastic tote (over-sized enough to fit larger art projects) for each child and store those things in there. I’ve also used an over-sized artist’s portfolio folder for these items to store permanently. And as mentioned in that June 1st post, it’s okay to scan and save to your computer much of this child-related paperwork. And one last word—backup, backup, backup those precious computer files!
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:56:31 +0000
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