PaperTamers' Challenge - Tame by April '09

[Harriet]

Paper, including filing/recordkeeping; billpaying/finance-planning; computer updating; social/correspondence upkeep; and just plain "stacks of indecision" is probably our most depressing organizational problem. Since it is tied up in every aspect of our lives, getting our papertaming in order can have a huge positive effect on our well being, with more control and less frustration.

The days prior to and including April are a helpful time to get caught up on papertaming. For those of us in the U.S. and Canada, there's the specific reason of April tax deadlines. We can save ourselves a lot of stress if we organize and get finished with that paperwork early.

Please post here any tips and ideas to help others, any recommendations of supplies or storage that have helped you. Feel free to ask questions about how long others keep documents, how they consolidate storage, how they keep on top of complicated tasks, ways to simplify correspondence - whatever advice will help you!

[Harriet]

Smile Lee, would you repost your excellent post in the previous thread today to this new one? Thanks!

[Smile*Lee]

Ooo... Thanks, Harriet! It's always good to have a fresh start. A more comprehensive plan is starting to take shape in the gray matter. I'll be back later to post it.

Here is my post from the other thread.

Hi PaperTamers!

Goal #1 - Get my office spaces organized by tax time. Lots of family/sickness issues since Thanksgiving, so my papertaming is WAY out of control.

Goal #2 - Our church is offering a Dave Ramsey course on finances, which I signed up for. Although I keep track of spending and bills, I could do a better job budgeting and preparing for future expenditures.

I don't know why I never thought of reusing the Swiffer boxes. I have 25-year-old baby wipes boxes still in use. I've also recycled old silverware dividers in drawers for pens/pencils/markers.

Mini-goals for today: bills - calls -update Calendar - menus - grocery list - school scheduling

[Smile*Lee]

I was out of town last week for the first Dave Ramsey session. I finally contacted the facilitator this week. He had one set left! Lucky me! The sessions are on Sundays from 11 to 1 after church. Weird how excited I am about this. lol

This is my beginning papertaming list broken down into babysteps - 15 minutes at a time. I'll come back to do more rearranging, organizing, prioritizing as I go along.

Online Banking: I'll work on this as I go along.

• start setting up more bills to be paid automatically
• --- 3 DONE!
• --- 3 applications enroute

Tax folder prep:

• inserting papers and forms as go through the office

DONE! School Area: I need to shore up this area first. What I keep in there impacts part of the office area.

• my desk
• bookcase 1
• bookcase 2
• rearrange

Kitchen Office Corner:

• organizer
• surrounding flat surfaces

Computer Desk:

• under pc desk
• lower pc desk
• pc hutch
• table top
• under table
• 2 drawers

Closet:

• shelves
• small dresser
• floor
• crate 1
• crate 2

File Cabinet:

• file papers
• file drawer 1
• file drawer 2
• file drawer 3
• file drawer 4

General Office:

• 1-3 bookcases
• 4-6 bookcase
• table
• under table
• several stacks of books

I think that's it for now!

[Harmony]

Papertaming is a definite every day routine for me. I work at taming the stacks every morning, keeping up with junk mail, correspondence, magazines, bills, misc. Keep in mind 3/4 of this is business stuff and 1/4 is personal. I just do it all together.

So far since the 1st of the year I have cleaned out 2 file drawers in my desk, shredded and burned 1 year's records, reorganized 2 army trunks with records and put 1 year out there from the office. I have gone through 2 statement/invoice file drawers and pulled 1 year out, organized all files in there and shredded quite a bit of old things like pricelists, etc.

I have gone through 1 drawer of job folders and removed anything completely done and filed in their spots. I went through all the insurance files and put old policies in their bins. I keep last year's insurance files and the current year's files in a drawer easy to get to.

One thing I do that has helped is not get sidetracked with papers that make no sense to me. Like little snippets of information or phone numbers, or parts of plans. I put stuff like that in a wire basket, like a desktop recycling bin! Every few months dh will look through and see if anything is usable. Once in a while I will find something in there that we needed and would have missed if I'd tossed it away. This keeps me from having my progress stopped.

Other thing I did this year is start a new accordion folder. I put lgl size folders in there with all the things my CPA needs for our taxes, but the folders poke out the sides of the accordion folder. This year I cut the folders probably half an inch and the papers still fit inside and the folders fit in the accordion better. Maybe this one won't wear out as quickly as the last one did.

Now if I could just get my housework this organized...

[blessedw2]

my desk... is that the big piece of furniture under all those papers and bills? I know I am bad!

this weekend it will be a focus.

[Harriet]

blessed!

Harmony, I like your idea you're using the basket for. So often, if I take as much time with each piece of paper as I think it MIGHT need, right then, I'll never, ever finish.

Smile Lee, you are so organized in your thinking and planning. Actually, I guess as I'm posing now, on a Sunday afternoon, you are at a financial session. Good job on following through to be sure you got a seat.

25-year-old baby wipes boxes - oh, yes, lol! That would be for sewing notions here!

Our tax preparer I use (for our own and my parents') has written to let us know that March 21 is his deadline this year for either getting the paperwork from his clients to do on-time filing, OR his having to file an extension for a client. Thought I'd post that in case that is also happening for others who might not think of it.

My recordkeeping of addresses and phone numbers came in handy - dh was editing a wedding video for a cousin he seldom sees. He was going to give it a "title page" for one thing, and name it with "their first names' Wedding". Suddenly I got a visual of my address card for her and knew something didn't seem right. I ran to get it and discovered that she spells her name with one vowel different from the usual - something dh had never realized. So he was able to quickly make that change and avoid embarrassment, plus now she won't always have a wedding video with her name misspelled!

[Smile*Lee]

~ waving to all the papertamers ~

It's been one virus after another since the first of January. I went and had xrays done last Thursday because I had so much pain in my right lung. They gave me some antibiotics and said this could last for 2 or 3 MORE weeks. I did get a few more things between virus bouts which I'll update. Hopefully I can get back into full swing next week.

[Smile*Lee]

my desk... is that the big piece of furniture under all those papers and bills? I know I am bad!

[blessedw2]

We got our money for taxes back, thanks to very dh and dharriet mind you.
goal to come for paper taming. I have all but one box of checks etc. from early marriage to know together and slowly every week I will be going thru that and tossing. I also now have a book that I list what I spend (most times daily) on my counter top. trying really hard for dh.

hi smile how are you doing with your pain in your lung? is it pneumonia?
hi harriet (we had the same thing, it actually makes sense that they need it by then to work on it)
so great re: record keeping of addresses and phone numbers and how they helped you! bravo.