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If you’re like most people, paper is a problem at your house. It probably seems to multiply on it’s own – stacks of mail, catalogs, kids art, bills, and more just showing up on counters, coffee tables, or really, any flat surface. Don’t worry if it seems hopelessly bad, because there is a way out of your paper nightmare. Work this week’s challenge, step by step, especially focusing on the maintenance plan at the end. This is the system I’d offer as your professional organizer. It works.

This may be the most important week of the entire challenge for you. Once you solve your paper problem, all other home organizing problems are easier to resolve and often avoided all together. This process is simple, but powerful.

Follow these steps in order. Trust the process!

1 – GATHER ALL THE PAPER

Go around the house and gather all of the piles of paper. Look in the kitchen, office, dining table, living room coffee tables, and your bedroom. Do you have a table or counter near your front or back door acting as a catch-all for your mail? Do you have an inbox (that you abandoned) overflowing with unmanaged paper? Use a box if necessary and get all the paper from all these locations, or wherever you have paper, in one place.

Find a large area to work, like your kitchen table or the middle of your living room floor. You are going to need space to spread out.

2 – SORT THROUGH EVERY PAPER ITEM

Sort piece by piece – grouping similar kinds of papers together. Here’s an idea of what kinds of papers you might find:

• trash
• recycling
• need-to-shred
• bills
• medical information
• employment papers
• vehicle papers
• insurance information
• banking/investment information
• school papers
• things to file
• letters/ holiday cards
• announcements
• invitations
• calendars
• catalogs
• flyers
• coupons
• warranty information
• or more

If needed, you can use grocery sacks or small boxes to contain the piles of paper while you sort.

3 – MAKE A LIST

Look around at your various piles and create a written list of the types of papers you’ve accumulated (give each pile a name).

Try to move on immediately to the next step and get through as much as possible right now. But, if you need to take a break, then use grocery sacks, binder clips, paper clips, or manila folders to keep your papers sorted until you’ve gotten through them all.

DO NOT STOP HERE!

4 – MANAGE ONE PILE AT A TIME

You’ve probably procrastinated this long enough. It’s time to actually deal with the papers. Start with the easiest pile first and do what you need to do with them. Sometimes the decision is simply: I don’t need this, I will throw it away. Sometimes papers represent actually needing to do something. Either way, let’s get it done NOW!

This step may take time, but it will be worth it to FINALLY be caught up. Here are some common piles you might encounter and what to do with them (check off your list as you go) –

Baby/ Graduation/ Wedding Announcements: Just throw out old announcements. Just do it. If it is recent, decide if you’re going to send a gift. Handle it right now and free yourself of the clutter.

Bills: Pay the bills you can, then use a calendar to plan out a schedule to pay your remaining bills if necessary. Keep the unpaid bills bundled together. (These will go in your inbox to be handled during your weekly H.M. Session.)

Calendars: Sports, gym, pool, school, church …. they all give us calendars. Consolidate! Whatever you use as your main calendar, put the important dates from individual calendars into it, then discard.

Holiday Cards: Birthday cards, mother’s day cards … Do you keep all the cards you receive? I’m not going to tell you whether that is wrong or right, but I will help you discover boundaries. If you have a treasure box that is holding important cards, file away your new cards. If your method of keeping them involves piles scattered around your home, let them go. Letting the cards go doesn’t mean you didn’t appreciate them or that you don’t love the giver, but you are putting your need of an uncluttered home above the need to keep the card.

Catalogs: It goes without saying, but cancel the catalog if you don’t want it. But sometimes you like catalogs, so make a decision. Are you going to order from this catalog? If so, order what you need right now. If not, recycle now. Don’t let piles of catalogs lay around as clutter. Trust me, if you don’t want something right now, you’ll get a new catalog by the time you do, and probably before then.

Coupons: If you are a couponer, then you need to organize your supplies separately. If you clip the occasional coupon on something specific, then mark it on your shopping list (with a reminder to use the coupon) then keep the coupon in your wallet for when you’re out to shop.

Invitations: If the event is in the future, RSVP and put it your calendar, write on your shopping list to buy a card and/or gift.

School Papers: If these are papers you currently need, organize them into binders or folders. If they’re past school papers (yours or your kids), scan what you think may be needed in the future, then recycle the rest. Will you really ever look at this again, or will you just search online?

* Stuff to file/ scan: Sometimes paper ends up hanging around that really needs to be filed or scanned. You are just procrastinating it. Handle it now. (This is our favorite paper scanner – it is awesome!)

* Everything else: Take the time, right now during this week of the challenge, to get caught up with your paper. That means truly going through all of these piles and handling them.

5 – DEVELOP A PAPER PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

If you keep up with your paper on a regular basis, you’ll never have to do a huge paper overhaul ever again. To save time, I recommend using an inbox and setting a weekly appointment to do all the paper tasks that have added up over the week. It shouldn’t be that much to do each week, but when you group all the little paper tasks together, it goes especially fast. Imagine no more frazzle from papers everywhere! You put all mail and papers into your inbox, knowing that you will go through it every single week. No more needing extra piles around the house for *important* papers, because you can trust yourself that you’ll get to the important things in your inbox each week.

This little weekly appointment I recommend is called The H.M. Session. HM = Home Management. It is the crux of my home management system. This is so important that I go ahead and add it as a task in my planners!

DEFINITELY read more about the H.M. Session! Use an inbox the right way!

Good luck this week. I know that solving your paper clutter will take a weight off you didn’t even know was making you so overwhelmed!

Happy organizing!

From my home to yours,
Mary

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Want More Inspiration?

Taming the Paper Trail of Clutter (or How to Effectively Use an Inbox)

Organize Home Office Files (Paper Management!)

Saving Little Johnny’s Artwork Forever {Organizing Memory Boxes}