Paper Clutter and How to Have Less of It

by Your Ordered Life | Organizing Advice

Fact: Paper creates clutter. There is just no way around it. Paper takes up physical space. It usually ends up being handled multiple times throughout its useful life. And, it typically overstays its welcome.

Where Does All of the Paper Clutter Come From?

• Junk Mail – The US Postal Service delivered 142.6 BILLION pieces of mail in FY 2019. Only half (71.4 billion) of that was First-Class mail. So, a LOT of mail is coming into your house and half of it is probably advertisements, unsolicited mail, circulars, etc.
• Purchases – Every time you buy something, it generates a receipt. Larger purchases come with a manual, a warranty card, advertisements for other products, etc.
• Healthcare – A single medical procedure can generate bills from multiple medical providers, plus explanation of benefits statements from your insurance company.
• Bills – Most of us receive monthly bills from a wide variety of places. Mortgage or rent, utilities, car payments, student loans, credit cards, etc. really add up.
• Life – Sometimes, it seems like you can’t go anywhere or do anything without acquiring more paper. The kids come home with announcements and permission slips from school. You go grocery shopping and come out to find a flyer under your windshield. Between their sophomore and senior years of high school, both of my children received what seemed like a metric ton of mail from colleges.

Do You Need All of that Paper?

Personally, I am anti-paper. I have a single file drawer in my desk with paper in it, and it’s not even half-full. I sign up for electronic billing, online statements, and e-mail or text notifications whenever possible. My scanner and shredder are some of the most frequently used appliances in my house.

Of course, not everyone is on board with the paperless way of life; some people are just more comfortable with hard copies. Even if you aren’t sure how paper-free you are ready to be, let’s take a few steps to help you dramatically reduce your paper clutter.

Ruthlessly Evaluate Every Piece of Paper

• Have you ever needed this information? If you’ve been holding onto this paper for a long time, but have never looked at it, reconsider whether or not you need to keep holding onto it.
• Under what circumstances would you ever need it? For example, if it’s a critical record that you haven’t needed in a long time, but would if you sold your house, it needs to be filed. However, if you can’t think of a single circumstance where you would need that paper, let it go.
• Is the information readily available elsewhere? If you’re a true technophobe or Luddite, you can take a pass on this one. Otherwise, odds are that you could find the information in that pile of paper clutter faster by looking it up online.
• Has it outlived its usefulness? Is that really a manual for a blender you gave away six years ago?? Never mind, just please throw it out.

Sort the Paper That You’ve Decided to Keep

Make one stack of papers that you need to deal with. For example, put the bills you need to pay, invitations you need to respond to, dates you need to add to your calendar, etc. in this pile.

Make a second stack of papers that you need to file. For example, financial statements, medical records, tax documents, etc. go in this pile.

Deal with the first stack ASAP

Pay it, sign it, respond to it, commit to it. Whatever you have to do to make that paper obsolete and disposable, do it now. If you can’t do it now, schedule a time (and make sure to write it on your calendar!) within the next week. Once you’ve dealt with that paper clutter, move it on. Recycle or shred it if you’re done with it for good. File it if it’s something you’ll need long-term (for example, a paid bill that is tax-deductible). Or, put it in a temporary holding place if you’ll need it again short-term (for example, tickets to an upcoming event).

Move that Paper Clutter Along

File everything you need to keep. Consider whether you want to maintain hard copies, or scan and create electronic copies. Either way, make sure that you file everything in a way that makes sense to you, and that will make it easy for you to find what you need, when you need it.

Shred anything sensitive. If you definitely don’t want to keep something, and it has any personally identifiable information on it, shred it before recycling it. I err on the side of over-shredding – identity theft is all too common, and it is absolutely miserable to deal with, so better to be safe than sorry.

Create a System for Ongoing Maintenance

• Try to deal with paper as soon as it comes into the house, whenever possible. Sign permission slips; fill out forms; respond to invitations; add dates to your calendar the first time you see them. When you open your mail, drop the anonymous junk into the recycling bin; shred what needs shredding; and file the rest, or put it in a designated place to scan.
• If you just can’t seem to manage that, set an appointment on your calendar at regular intervals to go thru this process again. It can be weekly or monthly depending upon how much paper comes into your house.
• Limit the amount of incoming paper wherever you can. Get off of mailing lists that don’t interest you; unsubscribe from magazines you never read; and sign up for electronic bills and notifications. The FTC has a number of suggestions for reducing unsolicited mail, email, and phone calls.

You will be amazed at how much more organized your house will look after you take control of your paper clutter. And if it’s more than you can handle on your own, we are always available to help!

The Power of Etcetera

by Your Ordered Life | Organizing Advice

Etcetera – From the Latin ‘et’ meaning ‘and’ and ‘cetera’ meaning ‘the rest’

The word ‘etcetera’ is typically used at the end of a list to indicate that there are additional, similar items that you aren’t going to bother to name.

Does Etcetera Have a Place in Organizing?

At first glance, ‘etcetera’ seems to run contrary to everything we have learned about organization. Isn’t organization supposed to be all about ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place’? Doesn’t dumping unrelated things together undo the whole point?

Obviously, if you throw everything you own into one big pile, labeling it ‘etcetera’ is NOT organizing (no matter how aesthetically the labeling is done). But it is also true that labeling everything you own in a hyper-specific way is not organizing either. Sometimes, ‘etcetera’ IS a category. Let’s take a quick look at the process of organizing to see how it fits in.

General → Specific

When you organize an assortment of items, you typically sort them into broad, general categories to begin with. For instance, in a garage, I would start by grouping together Yard Care items, Automotive items, Home Maintenance items, and Sports. Yard care might include gardening tools, potting soil, fertilizer, extra line for the weed eater, etc. Automotive items might include motor oil, car washing supplies, replacement wiper blades, etc. Home Maintenance might include tools, hardware, replacement light bulbs, etc. And Sports would include all sports and recreation-related items.

For most people, a broad Automotive category is sufficient for what they keep in their garage. But if I’m working with a client who is an auto hobbyist with multiple vehicles, that would not work. They might have dozens and dozens of items that fit in that Automotive category. We might need to have several specific sub-categories for parts, paint, and tools unique to each car. Similarly, a do-it-yourself enthusiast is going to have a lot more nuts, bolts, screws, and washers than someone who calls a handyman to change a lightbulb. The former is going to need to sort and label those to be truly organized.

How Many Categories Do I Need?

That will be determined by what you have. Continuing with the garage example, we might have a large pile of related things that don’t fit into any of the established categories. For instance, in smaller homes, garages sometimes serve as overflow storage for infrequently used items. So, there might be a bread maker, a large stock pot, some serving platters, etc. that we could group together in a Kitchen category.

What we would NOT do is create a category for Bread Makers, or even Appliances, if there are only one or two items that would fit in that category. The point of categorization is to make it easier to find what we need by grouping like with like. When the categories become too specific, they lose all meaning.

What About All of This Other Stuff?

So, what do we do when everything has been sorted into reasonable categories and there is still a small pile remaining? Nothing in the pile fits into any of our established categories, but we still need to organize it. 

The first question to ask is, ‘Do I need to keep these items at all?’ Maybe the reason they don’t belong anywhere with your other things is that they’re excess clutter. Often, when something doesn’t fit into your space, it’s because it doesn’t fit in your life. Let it go.

The second question is, ‘Are these things similar to each other’? Do they form a category of their own that makes sense? If the pile includes two dozen items, all related to your birdwatching hobby, then it probably makes sense to store them all together under a Birdwatching label.

The third question is, ‘Do these things need to be in this location?’ Sometimes, the reason that pile of stuff doesn’t fit into any of the categories in, for instance the garage, is that it doesn’t belong out there. If any of the items in the pile are obviously part of a category in another location, the easiest (and most organized) thing to do is to move them there. Group like with like.

Enter Etcetera

After you answer all of these questions, there will almost certainly still be a small pile of things. Maybe there are only a couple of them, or they are rarely used, or they are highly specialized items. Whatever the reason, they are what is left over after you’ve taken care of the obvious things. How to deal with them?

That is your ‘etcetera’ pile. Don’t waste time agonizing over how to label the items in that pile. You’ll only end up creating ridiculously specific categories and labels that won’t make that pile any more organized. Deal with it by putting it in a drawer, bin, or box; labeling it ‘etcetera’ and moving on. 

This is the philosophy behind the junk drawer. EVERYBODY has a junk drawer in their house. Mine has a pair of scissors, a box cutter for opening Amazon boxes, spare house keys, a couple of charging cables, a small container with a few rubber bands and paper clips, and lens wipes for cleaning glasses. All of those things could be stored somewhere else, but the junk drawer is in the most frequently used area of the house, the kitchen, and that’s where we are 95% of the time when we need those things.

In short, ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place’ is an excellent rule. But sometimes the place for something IS the junk drawer/box. A junk drawer is NOT a sign of being disorganized. As long as everything in there is functional and necessary, a junk drawer can be your best solution to objects that aren’t easily classified.

Embrace the power of etcetera, close that junk drawer/box, and move on to the next project.