January Cure- Assignment 4

Okay!  Time for me to make up for this week's slacking!

Assignment - Tackle the paper clutter!

As a person who's day job includes a lot of paper, it really is a peeve of mine.  What starts as a small stack grows and grows into a mountain that's toppling all over the place.  All the while virtually everything you need can be received (or at least stored) electronically. 

Documents are much easier to handle on a computer than in real life.  In real life, papers get lost, torn, drawn on, or just plain destroyed.  And don't even get me started on paper cuts.  So not surprisingly, I have a pretty good handle on the paper in our house. It's taken me a while to do though, and random papers still pile up.  I'm amazed at how many things are still printed when we can easily keep that info on our phones or computers.  

Anyway, here's what I do:

Stop it from the start

First I found out what the biggest sources were.  Not surprise, it's the mail.  So how to slay it?  First, I made sure all account statements and bills came to me through email. That's the simple step.  The next one takes persistence.  Stockpile unwanted magazines, catalogs or whatever and take an hour one afternoon and go to their website and update your preferences, or call them up to ask to be removed.  Fingers crossed it works on the first try.  Getting a zillion credit card offers?  The credit reporting companies (like Equifax, Transunion, et. al.) have a handy website to deal with that here. They have a form that allows you to opt in or out of pre-screened offers, like credit cards, loans, insurance, for five years or permanently.  

Hypothetically speaking, I think if we actually took out all the credit card offers we receive we could buy a house.  Not a little shack either, a big fancy one.  And the points we'd earn could furnish it.  (P.S. Don't listen to financial advice from weirdos on the internet.)

Set up a system

As soon as I get a piece of paper I figure out it's place.  Receipts go in a box near the entry in case something needs to be returned.  Mail is sorted as soon as it comes in the house.  The random bills or important things go right into my planner to be dealt with when I'm in accounting mode.  Anything that needs to be shredded goes into a pile that I shred about once a month when it gets too big.  Magazines and catalogs get stacked in the living room, and when a new one comes the old one gets tossed in the recycle bin along with whatever else came in that we don't need.  

One new area I've had to deal with is our daughter's school artwork.  She's so proud of it and I can't bear to toss anything yet.  So we went to Ikea and got the Dignitet curtain wire and fabric clips and use that as an art gallery in her playroom.  She loves coming home and putting up her newest piece.  Eventually, I'm going to take a picture of everything and have it printed into a book.  I'll keep my favorites but be able to toss the rest, all while keeping a great memento of her preschool days! 

Keep working at it

Nothing I wrote above is rocket science or particularly hard, but taming the paper beast is tough.  It's a daily exercise and it's easy to let it go for a while.  It's even easier if the system you set up isn't working for you.  So keep at it and figure out what works best.  Or just shred it all and use the pieces as confetti in a ticker tape parade. 

(That does sound fun doesn't it?  Glad the toddler can't read yet or I'd be cleaning up paper shreds for days.)