BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Organization Paper Organization: How do you stop paper clutter?

Dear Allison -

That's a shame, I only had that happen with one hosting company and I was able to get that taken care of very quickly. I suppose it's something to keep in mind.

I am getting somewhere with my binders. I now have my medical, car and pet one, the one for my self esteem class. My flylady control journal needs a lot more work, and I also need to revamp my Blue Box (contains all important papers in case of fire).

Am working on one for my financial applications, things I want to sell, my home maintenance journal, one for my various RVs and trailers, and a food journal. Although I might put the food info into my Flight Plan.

I am happy to explain what any of these things are if anyone wants to know.

Today I moved all my papers from my medical binder to a larger one inch binder. The half inch one was bulging. I tried to streamline this one but really don't know what papers i will find useful later, so I tend to keep most of them.

I might have to divide this further, or start separating things by year. At this point the one inch one is full and I am sure there will be many dr appts coming up. I still want to see about getting a blood draw ( i know I will faint, blerg).

And I was thinking about including family medical histories and eye/teeth appointment in this, but really, there just won't be room.

Have to ponder this more.

Today I gathered up all the business cards from my various drs and slipped them into a plastic business card holder sheet. I am adding that to the medical binder now.

I am also adding business cards to my "things to sell" binder - mainly the resources (stores and services) that I have stumbled across to help sell off my things. Right now I am working on the 'selling silver and gold scrap' places.

At this point these binders are in constant use:

daily flight plan
pet binder
medical binder
bill binder

I need to work on my projects binder tonite. That will be a good one to get going. Right now I am juggling with a mess of folders.

Dear Jilly -

That is awesome that you have these things organized so nicely. You are a model!

My paper pile here is getting better. I do have about 10 different to-do lists on my desk. Today's task will be to get those consolidated into one list. But in general I think I am doing fairly well with paper right now.

Jilly,
Wow, very impressive!!! I like the thought of binders right now I'm using folders but that has never really worked. It's such a hassle to get to the folders I let everything pile up and then one day sit down with 1000's of pieces of paper around me, trying to sort them out.

For autopays, definitely the mortgage (no hope of paying them off soon so no worries about after pay off debits), credit cards, car payments and insurance.

I gave in to go paperless on one of my credit card bills because they offered a nice sweepstakes entry incentive. So that eliminates a block of incoming paper.

I'll wait for my other bills to do something like that, I'm sure they all will.

In the meantime they do all auto pay so that saves a lot of hassle.

I brought in a stack of old magazines to the waiting room of my guidance clinic last week.

I always have homes for magazines - there are always waiting rooms in my life, and they appreciate fresher reading material! Some thrift stores also sell used magazines, and places like Bookmans will even buy them from you.

I like to scan important docs, shot records, appliance manuals etc.