8 Tips For Managing Paper Clutter
Paperwork can be a nightmare! Monthly bills and account statements, junk mail, insurance, warranties, receipts, your kids’ school papers, and so much more! It is very easy to become overwhelmed by all your papers and end up stuffing them in a drawer or letting them overwhelm counter space, thinking you will deal with them later. Unfortunately, we often don’t deal with it later as we intend to and we end up having an overwhelming pile of documents to sort through. Luckily, there are some easy tricks so that you can avoid having an overwhelming pile of papers laying around. Check out the following tips to help keep your papers organized!
Go paperless – Switching to paperless options can save you a ton of time sorting through documents. Most banks, credit card companies, and most larger companies have the option to go with online statements. Lots of schools have the option to communicate online as well so that you don’t receive paper copies.
Personalized Mail Organizer – There are tons of DIY projects on Pinterest that allow you to make a mail organizer that fits in your space and accent your decor beautifully. If you don’t have the time or the ability to make a DIY organizer, there are some options on Amazon that will work well too. Just make sure it has customizable labels so that it fits exactly what you need. You can customize it however you want with the labels; coupons, statements, mail that needs to be mailed, etc.
Receipt Organizer – This is only for tax-deductible receipts. Do not hold onto receipts that you don’t need! Hang onto tax-deductible receipts and receipts that you may need for returns or warranty purposes; you will have to use your own judgement for this. You can buy small accordion-style folders that work perfectly for receipts. They have labels on top which allows you to keep your receipts organized however works best for you.
Tabbed Files Organization – You may think you don’t have enough papers to require a filing cabinet, but I would strongly suggest reconsidering. It’s amazing how fast we acquire a ton of documents; Bill of sales, finance papers, insurance, manuals, etc. It can become overwhelming fast and if your papers aren’t organized, the process of finding a document can seem impossible. With tabbed files you know exactly where to look to find what you need. Save yourself time and less chance of losing important documents by using this system.
Color-Coded Tab System – An alternative to the original Tabbed Files Organization idea is to do a colour-coded system. Sometimes looking through the names of tons of files can be exhausting and narrowing it down by colour is helpful!
School Papers Storage System – If you have kids in school then you may know the large variety of papers that can be sent home on a regular basis. Some of it can be read and placed in the recycling shortly after, but there are many papers that you may want to hold onto like report cards, important documents, milestones, etc. Create a bin for exactly this. Labelled from Kindergarten-Grade 12 with your child’s name. Hang onto some of that art, I have heard far too many people regretting throwing it all out and having nothing from their children’s childhood because they defined it as clutter at the time. I’m not saying keep everything, but definitely keep something to look back at.
Make an Essentials Binder – Hopefully, you will never have to use this binder, however, if you do, you will be glad you created it. In your essentials binder, you will include any paperwork that you would want to be able to quickly grab and take with you in case of an emergency.
Binder System: Some people may prefer to use binders as a way of sorting their papers. This system works just as well as any other! Instead of labelling the file folder, you will label the binder and then sort them with the label facing up so you can easily find any documents you are looking for.
Hopefully, these tips will help you get your paper clutter under control! For any documents that you need to store, make sure you give us a call at Crate It Storage! I’d love to hear from you guys, what are your go-to paper organization tips? Leave it in the comments!
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