Do you have piles of paperwork that seem to grow more and more? Are you dreading decluttering paperwork piles that seem unending? Doesn’t it seem like paper clutter attracts more paper clutter?
If you’re overwhelmed looking for a way to get through all your papers, it might be that you just have too much. If so, understand that this will take time to go through and clear up. The accumulation didn’t happen overnight, and neither will the decluttering of it all, but as long as you take steps most every day, you will be making progress!
When I was so overwhelmed by paperwork piles, I used the following technique to whittle my way down to what was needed.
Declutter Paper Tips
Gather All the Papers
Going through your home, car, purse, garage, and anywhere else you can think of and gather all your papers to start. This way, it will all be together as a starting point.
Note: Keep sentimental papers in a separate stack for its own decluttering session—more on that in another post.
Gathering your paper all in one spot is useful in several ways. For one, if you need something while working through this process, you know where to look. Even though it may be in a more massive consolidated pile, you know where to find it.
Take a Before Picture
If you’re like me and end up becoming less motivated over time, be sure to take a picture. Before photos can do wonders for your enthusiasm when you see how much progress you’ve made, it’s easy to forget what life was like before decluttering — just how bad it was to try to find something or the enduring stress of walking by piles of deferred decisions. This one small step of taking these pictures (even if only digital) can help you pep up your energy and keep you going!
Do a Set Time or Chunk
If you have so much paperwork that it causes anxiety when you think about it, then just try to break this into reasonable chunks of time over days. Schedule this time in your calendar to make it happen. Usually, 15-20 minutes at a time is a fair amount of time to work on this.
Note: Instead of time chunking, you could also try to divide the paper into smaller discrete piles if that helps you prefer to work.
How to Sort Paperwork
Now, get rid of as much paper as you can overall. Work through and place items in piles according to their categories. I usually do this at first to just be able to work from similar type items when I get into the details of looking at things.
For instance, you may use general categories for the piles such as:
- To Do, Reference, Long Term
- To Be Handled
- Bills to pay
- School forms
- Invites
- Checks to deposit
- Items to be changed to electronic/online access/e-billing – Now that I’ve gone through this process many times, I’ve been able to identify what was able to be converted to electronic statements, so I don’t get much to sort through anymore. I used to, but not anymore.
- Reference Items
- Dates to remember (birthday, events)
- Addresses
- Often used recipes
- Items to be added to your phone contact info or calendar
- Utilities
- Bank statements
- Tax returns
- Retirement
- Investments
- Mortgage Documents
- Life Insurance
- Home Improvement
- Warranty Information & Receipts
- Medical
- Automobile
- Education
- Recycle
- Dispose
- Shred
- and so on
Paperwork may be divided into long-term or more official items, while you may also have things like sentimental paper items. If you’re a seasoned pro already, you may know what to toss or shred before having to handle it twice, but I’m not quite that good yet.
What to Keep
Think through what you really need to keep as you work on this. At first, you may just start sorting, but the sooner you dispose of a paper, the less you’ll have to work through in this entire process.
Repeat or Clean-up Session
When you run out of time each day, see if you feel like doing another session. If so, feel free, but regardless, try to ensure you clean up where you’re ending by taking care of the items you’ve sorted out, such as recycle, toss, or shred items.
Also, use some blank folders to place your roughly sorted piles in so they won’t need to be re-sorted again. If I don’t take care of things like this at the end of each night, I may have to go through them again to confirm what to do with them a second time.
When you keep and have just what you need, it becomes much easier to manage your paperwork.
Continue/Finish Purge & Sort
Once you’ve been through your entire pile once, you’ll have a better idea of what category files to create. You will also be able to identify what has added to your incoming clutter and be able to make some smart moves having to do with that.
Still working in time or discrete stack size piles, work through to create some files in hanging file folders for each of the stacks of paper you’ve decided you will keep for a while. Do this for the first batch; then, you’ll likely have a bunch in the rest of your remaining stack that you can file into these same folders.
Work through until finished (again, in time or stack units).
How to Organize Paperwork
There are many ways of organizing paper. Some people find it more useful to set up a new organizational system before going through their paperwork but I think it can be most useful to work this effort more toward the end.
For one, its a somewhat rewarding cap at the end of your paperwork purge. Secondly, seeing how you naturally sorted them when going through them may be your best bet for filing them, because that’s how you would naturally think to look them up once they have been stored. Finally, creating the organizational system first means you may create a labeled folder for something you don’t really need to keep and so you end up boxing yourself into having more than you need.
If you have a filing cabinet, be sure to add some hanging file organizers with clearly marked file folders in order to encourage your filing and reduce the amount of time you have to work on this task in the future.
Marie Kondo Paperwork Decluttering
The Kon Mari method of paperwork decluttering is tokeep as little as possible. File your paperwork under broad categories with the eventual idea of purging it. This way, you may end up with more filled file folders, but considering how little you really need to keep, they should still not get too full. Doing this with the year included on the label helps (and is similar to the Freedom Filer system) so that you may easily archive and purge what makes sense every year.
Freedom Filer Filing System
I personally use the Freedom Filer filing system but in a very simple fashion. It’s a set of pre-made tabs and organizational ideas that may be implemented in many ways. I recommend you think about what would work best for you, though, in the way you work with your paper. Using this system is great because it has a way of using even and odd years as a way to go through and automatically purge or archive your paperwork. It’s also nice because it is set up in a way that helps you identify and keep the paperwork you need long term. However, don’t get too caught up in trying to do everything with the system if you give this a try. Keep it simple but effective, so that it doesn’t become yet another thing that you eventually need to declutter.
Stop Incoming New Paper
Dispose of the Ads
Getting rid of junk mail and advertisements, before they hit your home, is a key to less stress over the long run. Go through the mail immediately, be brutal with it, and dispose of anything like sales circulars, advertisements, etc.
Handle the Quick Wins
Handle the quick items immediately. If it can take you less than five minutes to complete a task, why not just finish it off right away and get it off your future ‘to-do list’?
Reduce Your Papers with Online Access
If you can do something electronically, then try to get rid of your paper copies. That includes switching credit card statements to electronic statements, switching to online utility statements, and looking up your product info to see if they have corresponding online warranty info. If you want to be ‘safe,’ then download a copy to a hard drive. Otherwise, realize that you would likely be able to go back online for this should you need this later.
If you have old and easy things to get rid of, like warranty manuals for appliances from homes you no longer live in of TVs that have long passed, those are a slam dunk to toss.
Switch to Electronic Access or Billing
If there are any items like credit cards or utility bills, then try to go and switch these to be electronically available.
Create a location of a specific size area where you can put the items that need more time to complete.
Schedule a time where you commit to going through the items, preferably weekly or monthly, to keep on. Then handle each paper as you go through it. If it’s not due right away, you may want to defer, but remember that you’ll eventually have to handle it anyway.
Set Up Automatic Payments
Figure out anything you can set up auto-pay for and do it.
Stop the Ads
- Remove yourself from marketing lists.
- Cancel magazine subscriptions
Maintenance Mode
Once you get to a point where you’ve been through all your paperwork, requested electronic access for what you can, and otherwise have stopped the incoming deluge, you can go into maintenance mode.
Stay on guard for more paper coming in your door, but usually, it’s good enough just setting aside either a weekly or monthly block of time to go through and file what makes sense.
Decluttering Trouble Areas
Shredding it All
Everything does not need to be shredded. Don’t let lack of a shredder a reason for your piles or bags of paper to get larger. Think about whether or not there is something on the document before it needs shredding.
If you have a shredder, keep safety in mind concerning children, but try to put it somewhere with easy access to use as things come in your home. Be smart with your shredding, because shredding paper too much can make it difficult to recycle, so if you can tear off your info and the rest of the document is not sensitive, then you may be just fine shredding just the part.
If the document has anything like your social security number, email address, or any personally identifying information (PII), then it would be best to shred it.
If you don’t have a shredder, you can look for a shred truck option and bag that needs shredding.
Scanning Everything
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you should scan everything. There is still such a thing as digital clutter! Be sure to determine whether you’ll need, refer to, or want the scanned image before creating it.
Disorganization
In addition to the problem with scanning all the documents, where it no longer serves useful, you’ll also want to make sure that you devise and USE a system of organizing the files you save so that you may find them later.
Perfectionism
Trying to get this perfect can be off putting and often makes us delay the process of working through it. Remember that perfection is often the enemy of progress.
Running a Business
If you run a business out of your home, pay special attention to keeping what are considered important documents for legal and tax purposes. You may not know how long to keep bills and paperwork. Consult with a local tax preparer or accountant for a list of what you need to keep and have on hand.
Figure out what you don’t need to keep and get rid of them right away. You may be able to find a list online or from a local tax preparer or accountant. It might be useful to find a list for the state where you live. They’ll offer some general records of essential documents you need to keep and for how long.
Receipts
I used to struggle with receipts, they could be so messy. Now that a lot of shopping is done online, I think I have less to keep because I can still access the order confirmations.
However, for the paper receipts that are still coming in, here’s what I do.
I just keep a two receipt folders. One is for purchases within the last month. The other is a long term folder, where I move the items from the current month to at the end of the month if it makes sense. Once a year, then I go through the long term folder and purge, as well.
Other Types of Items
Sentimental Paper Items
Cover your sentimental paper items separately. Place those in a separate location for working at another time. Do keep in mind that even with old mortgage paperwork, auto information, and educational material, sometimes we may hang onto this as a way to hold onto the past. Be aware that this can happen. The best way to continue to pare down as much as reasonably possible is to ensure you work each decluttering session as fresh as you possibly can.
For sentimental items, you’ll want to pare down to an amount where you’re still able to enjoy them. Too many make it so you cannot enjoy it. You want to be able to curate it. You want to be able to pick the most significant or meaningful items to enjoy them. Work some challenges and see if you can either work down to half of them. Then try it again until you get to a point where you feel like you can enjoy the items.
I’ll write more about what worked for our family in another post. Sentimental items are still a hard issue for me!
Gift Cards & Coupons
To organize and contain gift cards and coupons for best use, try to keep these in some sort of according file. This will keep them from getting out of hand and cluttering up your home. At the end of each month, a quick review can be done to purge.
Helpful Considerations
A few things that may help, depending on your personality!
- Upbeat music
- A decluttering partner or buddy (can be virtual)
Organizational Items for Managing Paper Clutter
It may also be helpful to have some organizational items on hand for the wrap-up and continued success of dealing with paper coming into your home.
I strongly advise that you do this toward the end of your paperwork decluttering, though. Otherwise, you may purchase items you do not need or buy storage and tools to project and idealize your situation when you’re not yet ready to use them.
This may include things like:
- Filing System (ex. Freedom Filer)
- Hanging File Folder Organizers
- File Folders
- Label Maker
- Desktop Bins, Organizer Trays, or Over-the-Door Hanging File Organizer
- Filing Cabinet
