Organizing School Papers

Simple Steps to Decrease the Paper Clutter

Papers from school can be harder to deal with than if someone came in and dumped a garage truck full of trash in your driveway. Why? Because they are personal! Your children did them, worked on them and created them. That is why so many mom’s have trouble getting rid of them. They just love to see what their child has accomplished.
So can you keep everything all your kids do from the time the start school until they finish? Sure…if you want to live in a trash zone or store them in a storage unit so they can rot in there.
No..of course you can’t, and better yet, there is no reason you should.

Should you keep a few special papers each year so that you can enjoy them and they can see them when they grow up? Certainly! But only a few.

Here is a guideline to help you decide what papers to keep and what to get rid of.

ONE PAPER PER MONTH PER CHILD.

How is that for simple? It gives you a limit, a guideline and a goal. Can you keep less than that….YES!!

But what if they have 1 really good picture that won a school coloring contest and then an A+ on their first big report, but they are in the same month? Ok…no problem, go back through the other months and decide on which one is not as important to keep as these.
So really it is 12 papers a year. Yes…you can use the summer months as a cushion.

• Don’t keep all the worksheets that they do.  – They are worksheets..just to learn.
• Look for the stories they wrote by themselves.
• Look for the pictures they did not trace, but drew themselves.
• Look for the reports they worked weeks on and were so proud of.

So what do you do with all the other pictures they drew, science fair projects with huge poster boards?

Take a picture!! Just like the above pictures. My triplets were thrilled to pose with their projects and loved that I liked them enough to take pictures of them. They don’t care if they don’t have that big poster shoved back in some cubby space in the basement anymore. They still have the memories..and that is all we need too.
You can scan them into your computer if small enough and you have the memory space on your computer.

You can create a photo book from some of these online places like Snapfish. Peter Walsh shared this idea on one of his Oprah shows. He said take pictures of their art work (you can put more than one of their pictures in the photo) and then at the end of each school year create one of these photobooks with their art work. There is room to write in the book accomplishments, teacher’s names, accomplishments for the year. This would be much nicer for them to have when they are older than a box full of papers.

You can have a bulletin board that you keep a special paper of the day or of the week on to showcase it if its a little special and they worked hard on it that week. This will make them feel proud. Then when you take it down, if its not that most special paper of the month…throw it away. (They do not need to see you physically throw it away, nor do you have to tell them – they will just be thrilled their new picture is up now.)

This one is in our basement, in the kids zone.  Since we made a bedroom on the other side of these basement steps, we wanted to do something to block looking under the steps.  We placed three bulletin boards to block the opening… and also to provide a place the kids could display any artwork or school papers they wanted to.

If you keep everything….then nothing will seem special!!

Keeping big boxes of papers to give your children is a burden not a gift. They have to deal with getting rid of all the papers you felt to guilty getting rid of.
Being handed one box of things that goes from k-12 is not so bad, and photo books would be even better.

Remember, it is not like you are saying your child isn’t special or you don’t like the work they do by throwing it away. But keeping everything is not feasible if you want to have a home that is comfortable and not cluttered.

 

This post was adapted from a post I did in 2009.

Organizing the Paper Clutter – Mission: Office

Those Papers Coming Into The House – They are  never ending!

I discussed my mail system here, but I wanted to go into more detail with you today on how I handle the rest of the paper trail.

Over the next week I am going to go over how to handle in more detail, so be sure to follow along!

1) Bills
2) Files and how to Organize Them
3) Daily paper file or “Command Center”
4) Receipts /Income and how to handle that for a home business
5) Password Directory

Mail Comes in from the Mail Box or School Papers

You can see my post on “mail” here.

1) One Central Location For Mail

Have just one central location that the mail is to be places when it comes into your house. Make sure each family member that might bring mail into the house has 1 place to put it. That way it isn’t left on the kitchen counter one day, dining room table another, couch – underneath the newspaper another day.. you get the point.

2) Sort It

Separate out your spouse’s mail  or if you have another person in the household that routinely gets mail and have a specific spot that you place that when you sort it from the main “mail hot spot”

A) Bills To Be Paid

B) To Do

This will go into your Daily Files  or “command file center”. School conferences, appointments, things you have to follow up on.

C) To File

Papers that you need to keep. There are no “pending actions” to be taken on these papers.

D) Junk Mail – To be Shredded

You can see my post on shredders here.

If you have a specific plan for your paper trail, it will make it run much more smoothly. If you don’t have a plan, things will get lost, be late, appointments missed and life will be a bit more chaotic.

Your Mission if you chose to take it is: Track your Paper Trail!

Link up Your Office Mission Post

You can find the linky by clicking on the button above or going to my Organizing Mission Link Party. Feel free to keep linking up your different office projects that you accomplish during this Office Mission. I am ok with also linking up organizing projects that aren’t office related. This link will be up until Feb. 24 so you will have time to add your office projects in.

I would love it if you could vote for my blog! You can vote up to once per day. Just click the button. Thank you!

Organizing Your Paper Command Center – Mission: Office

How Do You Deal with All the Daily Papers?

I have my daily paper command center, but it needed a bit of an overhaul now that I have my new office set up.

I have tried several different solutions for paper command centers.  Several I have used because I have reviewed them.  You can see them at the end of this post.

I use this Paper command file to deal with daily papers coming in.  This is not for my bills.  This is not for all the drawings that Johnnie and Suzie bring home from school.  (I only keep 1 or 2 of those and they go into the file drawer in their folders) This is for all those papers that you need to follow up on, do immediately or need to reference quickly.

For the other papers

But I have a cubby by my chair in my office that I have plans to put my paper command center.  So I had to have a system that would fit and also would be easy to file papers in.

I went down to my basement where I have some organizing supplies that I have used in the past or plan to use.  Here I found the back plastic filer that has drop in separate file hangers.  These all fit into a file box, but I’m not using it that way now.

I got it all cleaned up.

I also cleaned the individual files boxes that fit down in. Each one of these has a specific function

1) Home

2) Business

3) Medical

I went through each file and decluttered it.  I made the following decisions when I sorted

1) Keep

2) File

3) Toss (recycle)

Then I made new labels using my label maker.  I’m not one who makes labels for every little thing in my house, I’m not teasing when I say the label maker tape can get expensive – but I do think it really makes the file tabs look awesome!

I color coded the labels.  Blue is for home.  Yellow is for work.  Green is for Medical / expenses for step kids

I already had everything, but didn’t have enough of the same color file folders to do them all purple, or red etc.  I did have enough to do the ugly old green..and I had to use those in the last section.. but I at least got to use the purple ones up front where I’ll see them.

I do suggest that you put the file tabs on the front part of the file folder.  I also suggest that you put them all lined up in a row. It is easier to see them lined up rather than darting all back and forth if they are spaced out.

Here is how I broke them down.  Of course we all have different needs and priorities in our homes, so more than likely my system won’t be your system.

This is my Family section of my Paper Command Center

Keep in mind these are not for long term paper storage. That would be the file cabinet.  This is for

1) Home Business – anything pertinent to the home, but not designated to a specific person.

2) I grouped the triplets together because most of what they get pertains to school or karate and it is all the same anyway

3) Each other family member has their own file, including Dave and I

Now for the medical.  For me this includes insurance, dealing with 2 ex’s and the kids medical and other expenses that have to be split.

The last folders are the ones I use most often. They will go in the front of my command center.  It is for my business.

In the very front I have a “To Do” folder.  This is the place that I will put papers that have immediate need.  This is not for bills (that is in a separate location that I will go over in another post). Then I have broken down the areas of my business that I need.  This might include for you

1) To Do

2) Projects

3) Banking

4) Specific projects might get their own folder

5) Income/Expenses (mine are separate, I’ll show you in another post)

Then each of these 3 separate drop in sections fit down in the main one.

I place the “home section” in the back.  The “medical” section in the middle and the “business section” up front – so it looks like this when it is complete.

Then it fits right beside my chair where I can have instant access to it.

I just pull it out a bit and can slip papers in very easily.

So what do I do with all those other papers that need to be filed and go into the file drawers?  Like receipts for bills that were paid, or that special paper that Johnnie or Suzie brought home that I don’t have time to run over to my file drawer and file right now.

Those go into my general file bin that I will sort and file at the end of each month.  At my old desk set up it was a stackable plastic tray.   So I just put them right down below in this pink cubby.

From this pink bin.. they go straight to my file cabinet.

Just to refresh your memory:

Paper Command Center “Before”

Paper Command Center “After”

Here are a few other Paper Command centers that I have reviewed in the past and that might work better for you.  Remember, none of us are the same, we have different needs and we have different systems that might work better for us than others.  Don’t ever think you have to fit into a cookie cutter mold and do something exactly like someone else.

One of these other systems that I have reviewed in the past might work better for you.

The “In Place System” by Peter Walsh

The PileSmart® Desktop Organizer Tray by Pendaflex

You might also like the Smead File System

Your Mission if you chose to take it is: Show me your Paper Command File!

Link up Your Office Mission Post

You can find the linky by clicking on the button above or going to my Organizing Mission Link Party. Feel free to keep linking up your different office projects that you accomplish during this Office Mission. I am ok with also linking up organizing projects that aren’t office related. This link will be up until Feb. 24 so you will have time to add your office projects in.

I would love it if you could vote for my blog! You can vote up to once per day. Just click the button. Thank you!

I am linking this post to:

Organizing Mission Monday – Mission: Office Week 7

How are your office Missions coming?

Have you started working on your offices?  Take small steps.  I have several posts that will help you work through just one thing at a time. When you do, link up your blog post so we can all enjoy it with you!

Here is the list of the Office Missions that I have done so far:

1) Your Files
2) Your Mail System
3) The Shredder
4) Pen & Pencil Clean Out
5) Organizing Your Desk Drawer

This week we will be going over your Paper System. What to do with all those incoming papers.  Also redesigning your office space.

Here are my Featured Bloggers for This Week

I have a few people who have started working on their offices. Yeah! Thanks I love it!

Mom Starting From Scratch – Daily Declutter Challenge #8 – A Special Kind of Chaos

Lynn takes these papers and makes organized binders for them.  She has a special kind of chaos because she is the mother of a special needs daughter. I know too well what these parents go through. (I used to case manage the pediatric home care cases for special needs children).  If you think you have a lot of paperwork coming into your home… then triple it (at least) for a special needs child. Check out Lynn’s blog. She is new to blogging and it would be great if you could stop by her blog.

I Forgot What I Was Doing -  “Organizing To DeStress”

I totally agree!  Organizing is such a destresser for me. I feel like when I get all irritated, many times it is when things aren’t organized.  Once I get things in order… I feel better

She worked on her pens – and found some change and realized that not all of them do work. (imagine that!)

Mom Nonstop – 21 Day Organizing Challenge – The Mail Station

Cris worked on her mail station. She has a different way of keeping track of how she pays her bills. Be sure to stop by her blog and check out the rest of her post.

Thank you featured bloggers.. don’t forget to pick up your button on my sidebar!

Link up to my Link Party

Rules- Just a couple basic ones.  Your link doesn’t have to be office related, just organizing… but I will be looking for the office related on this Office Mission for my Featured Bloggers. Thanks!

1) Link back to my blog with either the button or my link. (Use the Organizing Mission button on my sidebar)
2) Would also love it if you could follow me on google or FB
3) Blog posts related to Organizing or Cleaning please.
4) Family friendly (or I will delete)
5) No sales pitches or web sites please.

Be sure to check out my list of link parties! If you have a link party.. please link it up! Underneath the daily buttons there is a list of links I have compiled of link parties.

If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple.

The Shredder – Mission: Office

Mission Office – The Shredder

The mission today is to discuss the shredder. I think every office should have a shredder.  It is just a good idea to get rid of all those papers with account numbers on them etc.  I’m going to share my new shredder experience with you and a little tip that worked for me. But I’m open to hearing your ideas.

I got a new shredder.  I had been using a very small desk top shredder that could only handle 1 piece of paper at a time.  But I kept it out by my “mini office” in the family room, so it worked out great.

After I rearranged my office (you will see in coming posts) I was going to be using my office and had an area underneath the desk and next to my recliner (yes… recliner) that one would work.

I know this isn’t a very pretty picture.  It is under the desk and behind a file cabinet, so not seen from the front of the desk.  The box is all the papers I need to shred, after cleaning out my files.  See how this shredder is long and narrow?  I thought it would work out great in this space.

So…. I started shredding away.  It was working great.  Then it slowed down… ok time to empty

Yes… it was full.  I grabbed a trash bag, and got back behind the chair to empty it.

Ok..I could see this was not going to be pretty.  As careful as I was … the little shreds of paper still went all over.  It reminded me of the big cool shredder we have at work (yes… I think it is fun to use). But every time it gets emptied… it is such a mess.

I moved the box out of the way, vacuumed and then got a black trash bag.  I considered getting a plastic bin to put underneath of it.  But, with this being long and narrow, I would have to pull it all the way out from under the desk…. anyway… logistically that wasn’t going to work. The drawer wouldn’t have pulled out without being out of the bin…

I also knew that putting a trash bag liner wasn’t going to work. The drawer wouldn’t have been able to close, and if it isn’t closed all the way, then the shredder won’t turn on. So.. although it isn’t pretty… it should work.

Let’s see if this is going to work. I filled it again with shredding
Still a little messy, but it is contained in the trash bag now. I got a separate trash bag to empty the bin into and left the one underneath the shredder. I am also going to use a clear trash bag next time underneath the shredder.  Even though no one sees it but me, it will still just look a little nicer.

Some paper dust… but ready to shred some more.  Once the box is empty, I will probably put a nicer basket or plastic bin to the right of it to put the shred pile in. There are times that you have more shredding to do than you have time for, or in my case the shredder heats up enough by lots of shredding and it turns off. Until it cools it won’t work.   So there may be times you have to have a storage area for the shred pile.

Do you have a shredder?  Do you use it?  Do you have problems with it being messy when you empty it?  What do you do to take care of that?  I would love for you to share any shredder posts that you may have… and if you don’t have any yet, why don’t you make one?

Your Mission if you chose to take it is: Show Me Your Shredder!

Link up Your Office Mission Post

If you have a blog post on your shredder or lack there of & how you use it, I’d love for you to link it to my Organizing Mission Monday link party. This link party will be left open for a month to go with the Mission – Office that I am working on with my link party.

I would love it if you could vote for my blog! You can vote up to once per day. Just click the button. Thank you!

I would love it if you could vote for my blog! You can vote up to once per day. Just click the button. Thank you!

I’m linking this post to:

Organizing Your Files Drawer – Mission: Office

Paper Clutter… yuck!

I don’t know of anyone that really likes all the paper clutter.  We have SO much coming into our house all the time. From the daily mail to the kids school work, things we need to print from the computer.  It is never ending and easy to get out of control.

I have recently reorganized my office and with that I finally went through and reorganized my files.  They were a mix match of file folders and hand printed labels.

I pulled together all my purple files that I purchased several years ago and decided to only use those (cuz their pretty! lol)

Before Files

Kind of all over there aren’t they?

Here is another drawer
Some tabs and folders from my husbands files when we got married… came over to my file drawer.

The kids files were a mess too.

My husband recently made his own “man cave” in the basement for his projects and added an office space. So we were able to move him out of this main office upstairs. He took all the tax info and some other financial family info downstairs.  He had already started files for his 4 kids.. so we decided to merge those. So his kids files went downstairs with him.

Here is the file cabinet I mainly use. It goes with this big stinky cool desk I have.  It is a little worse for the wear.. but hey… it works great.

So I emptied everything out of it.. drawer by drawer

and of course had a bigger mess then I started with for a day

I was in the middle of the entire office reorganization in this picture… (see all the stuff in the back?)

I was also working on taxes.. that is what this picture is of.  But.. while I was reorganizing the files.. it looked much the same.

Got out my old but reliable labeler that I had the right color (and enough of it) label tape to complete the project.

I labeled the tabs.  I had several different kinds of tabs…. but I didn’t want to go and purchase anymore of one specific thing.. so I had no problem that some look just a little different than the others.  I tend to be more practical than anal.

I went through and sorted.  I kept all tax info of course. Also major purchases, policy info, records for kids and dogs and the rest of us for medical purposes.

One thing I did get rid of was all the bill stubs from bills I paid.  I have kept them for years.. and the reason for that was because I went through a divorce. If they want to reconfigure child support… I have had to come up with things that go back 2 years.. in all my bills.  But, since my youngest will be graduating this year, I don’t have to worry about that any more! (yippy!)  But I did keep the visa bills, just to follow up on if need be for a purchase or credit.

Here is the kids file drawer with only my boys and my file in it.

And look at this!!!

I have an empty drawer!!  Wow!!

So lets review…

Before File Drawer

After File Drawer

Tell me about your File Drawers!

If you have a blog post on your file system, I’d love for you to link it to my Organizing Mission Monday link party.  This link party will be left open for a month to go with the Mission – Office that I am working on with my link party.
I would love it if you could vote for my blog! You can vote up to once a day! Thanks so much!!

Guest post

Paper DeCluttering

by Stephanie Calahan

Stephanie’s Comment On My Blog Became a Guest Post

The following post was actually a comment on my “What would Sandy Suggest” blog post.  I felt there was so much great content in here that I decided to take her comment and make it a guest post!

Paper is one of the biggest problems for people and I know I have people ask me about it all the time, just like Stephanie.  Here are her tips on paper decluttering.

Sandy

***************************************************************************************************************************************
Paper Decluttering – by Stephanie Calahan

I have found that paper paralyzes many of my clients. We hold on to a lot of the stuff! Here is one way of thinking when you are in declutter mode:

Think DART — Throw your DART and You’ll Hit Your Mark Every Time!

The D in DART is for Decision. You have to make a decision about the items in the piles that you have.

The A in DART is for Action. There are different types of action, but no system works unless you ACT!

The R in DART is for Reference. We all have items that we keep for reference. There are specific tools that you use to keep those items where you can remember them.

The T in DART is for Toss. Now, toss does not necessarily mean throw away. I can mean recycle, shred, sell, does not belong in this room, etc…

8 Questions to Use as You are Making Your Decisions

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to make the decision process process easier:

Does it require any action by me/us?
If an item requires action (a phone call to make, a report to write, a bill to pay, an outfit that requires altering) then it is an “ACT.” Keep everything that requires action in one location, so that when you have time, you will be able to go through and check the items off of the list! This is the A in DART — for action.

Are there tax or legal implications?
Have you talked to your council about the information you keep and how long you keep it? If not, you might want to consider doing so. Each industry has different documents that should be retained as does residential paperwork. If you answer “yes” put in your Reference system; if not Toss.

Is it recent enough to be useful?
Is the address book that has not been updated in 3 years really current? Just like food has an expiration date so do the things in your life. If you are keeping things that are no longer current, you are not allowing yourself the space for new and better things to start. If you answer “yes” put in your Reference system; if not Toss.

Is it difficult to obtain again?
Birth certificates, legal documentation, marriage licenses, company incorporation papers, the list goes on and on. If there are items that are difficult to find or obtain again, you may want to consider keeping the item in a container designated for that type of item. If you answer “yes” put in your Reference system; if not Toss.

Is it beautiful, useful or loved?
Are you keeping something that you think is hideous because it was a gift to you from someone special? Don’t. Only surround yourself with things that bring you joy. Most likely, the person that gave you the gift would not want you to keep it if they knew you did not like it. If you answer “yes” put in your Reference system; if not Toss.

Can I identify specific use?
Do you keep things because you might “need them someday?” That is fine if you #1, have the space to keep the items and #2 know what you are going to do with the item. If you are keeping something for the express purpose of keeping it, consider that item a little harder. If you answer “yes” put in your Reference system; if not Toss.

Does it reflect the person I was or the person I am now?
Are you keeping things that were important to you in the past, but really do not have the same meaning anymore? Does your space reflect who you are or who you were? Get rid of things that no longer hold meaning for you. If you answer “am” put in your Reference system; if “was” then Toss.

What is the worst possible thing that could happen if I get rid of this?
This one is one of my favorite questions! If you can ask yourself this question and find that you can live with the answer, then it can make it easier to let go.

I look forward to the next edition of What Would Sandy Suggest.
To your success!

Stephanie

Stephanie runs Productive and Organized Home

Guest post

Paper Clutter

by Linda Samuels

What does Paper Clutter & Toilet Paper have to do with each other?

Paper Clutter by Linda Samuels CPO-CD

Someone once stated that we’d have a paperless society when we have a paperless toilet. Almost a decade ago, the paperless toilet arrived, yet unlike the prediction, we still are far from living in a paperless society. In fact, we seem to have more paper than ever. If you are struggling with your piles, you are not alone. While people face a variety of organizational challenges in the digital age, the most common one is pervasive paper clutter.

Let’s be honest about our papers. If your piles are too high and your filing cabinets so full that you can’t easily find the documents you need, you might consider making some changes.
Many people despise looking at their piles, let alone touching them. By postponing the work, are you making the task more difficult? Here is one simple tip for sorting through your papers that might work for you:
* Set a timer for 15 minutes
* Crank up the music
* Put the recycling & garbage bins next to you
* Play the “Sort and Release” game
* When the timer rings, stop working
Instead of having a marathon session and facing potential burnout, try to work in regular, short, focused intervals to tame your paper clutter.
If the growing piles of paper are causing you more distress than the effort involved in organizing, and you are finding it impossible to sort papers on your own, you are one among many. I encourage you to enlist help from a friend, family member, or professional.

Linda is the author of The Other Side of Organized, and has been featured in The New York Times, Woman’s Day, Ladies Home Journal and Bottom Line Personal. Linda can help your readers find the “balance between chaos and perfection” in their lives, as she is a Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization. And, hey, if your readers can’t look around their homes and claim some room ‘chronically disorganized,’ then more power to them!

Disclaimer – The toilet paper and paper clutter picture was taken by me and not submitted by Linda.  I just loved how she related paper clutter and a paperless toilet together!

PileSmart Desktop Organizers

Help for the Those Paper Piles!

Does Your Desk Look like this …or worse?
Piles of papers can get overwhelming…and things get lost in them! I think most all of us tend to stack the mail and make piles. The problem lies in what you do with those piles.

There are vertical drawer files, vertical desk top files…but for some people – those just don’t seem to fit their style. They want to pile.
Pendaflex has come up with an answer for the pilers! It is their desk top filer and it is piling! The PileSmart® Desktop Organizer Tray! There are dividers that you can label to divide your piles and make some sense of what you have.

I think it looks great. You can label the tabs and they are erasable. They are sturdy enough that you just left them up easily to slide your papers under. The PileSmart® Desktop Organizer Tray is made of durable acrylic and is slightly slanted towards the back corner to keep your papers looking neat.

This is that same pile of papers afterwards. Looks much better than that pile doesn’t it? I didn’t label the tabs, because I haven’t fully decided how I am going to use this….but I did want to show you what it looks like.

Here are the PileSmart View Folders with Write on Tabs

These are pocket folders that are open on the side to make sliding in things very easy. You can also use these in the trays if you would like.

Then check out these cute clips! The PileSmart® Binder Label Clips can clip together your documents quickly and see what they are at a snap. You can write on the plastic label’s with a pen.

You can find all of these products online.

1. PileSmart® Desktop Organizer Tray
-Buy Online Now

2. PileSmart® Binder Label Clips
-Buy Online Now

3. PileSmart® View Folders with Write-On Tabs
-Buy Online Now

In Place File System by Peter Walsh

Papers need to be handled! Peter has an idea!

Handling paper clutter can be done in many different ways. That is why I do not recommend just one way to do it. People are wired different. A solution for one person..might not be the right thing for another.  ( I apologize..I should have taken all those things off the lid…they look really messy!)

This “in Place System” by Peter Walsh is interchangeable with his whole line. There are some great products and I love how they all work together!  You all know I love Peter Walsh and I’m a fan of his products.

I am using this portable file box (which you can purchase a pack of 6 at Office Max for $11.99.) in my family room. That is where I do most of my work with my laptop. So it is nice to have something portable and small…but yet has a great file system.

Do I like it….yes. My thoughts are this:

If I were designing it…I would have not used a cardboard box.(or if I used cardboard…I would make them in fun colors).  I would have done a plastic colorful box. But of course then you lose the price point. They also did a lot of research based on feedback and this is why they came up with that. So this might serve the majority better.

What do you have trouble Organizing?

We all have an area of our house that gets messy just because we either can’t stand to organize it ….or we don’t know how?
I would say for me the area that I like the least is paper management. The file system! I have one that works for me. But what works for me certainly doesn’t always work for my clients.

There are file systems that you can have your broad topics: Home management, Cars, Bills, Kids.
Then you can have those systems that people like to micro file: Business meeting Aug 7, 2009, Billy’s monthly karate etc…

There are some that love the paperless concept: Neat receipts or a Snap Scan by Fujitsu that can scan all your receipts, business cards etc.. into your computer – thus ending most paper content.

There are those that are scared to throw out a single piece of paper. I had one client that has a huge amount of paper and files. I thought a Snap Scan (my sister recommended….she loves hers) would work well for him and he agreed. But I knew with him, it would only be for magazine articles and articles related to his profession. The volume of these things alone was immense. No one can MAKE someone throw something away if they aren’t ready. We can encourage them to and try to get to the bottom of why they feel they can’t part with it…but bottom line is…it is theirs and their decision.
But to get on with my story – After hours of scanning and several boxes of papers, magazines etc..that I was thrilled we were going to be able to get rid of since we had just scanned them….. You guessed it – he didn’t want to throw them out…just yet. We did talk and I did convince him that he had all the information and as he backed everything up automatically every 30 minutes (I think) he wasn’t losing any of that information.

So what do you hate to organize? Share your thoughts, your pictures….I’d love to help if I can.

Disclosure: I am not presently representing either the Neat Receipts or the Snap Scan, I have used them both in the past and did a past review on the Neat Receipts.

The 12 Step Program for the Surface Abuser

I love this desk, family work center. But what a desk CAN look like

The 12 Step Program for the Surface Abuser.

1) Admit that you have a problem.

2) Ask for help with your Surface Abuse problem. (Professional organizers are everywhere!)

3) Remove ALL surfaces in your home.  (Only kidding!)

4) Realize that this will take on going maintenance to maintain.

5) Visualize what you would LIKE this space to look like.

6) Start the process with one surface.

7) Get a black trash bag for trash and a White trash bag for donate.

8) Begin the Sorting process. Clear everything off your counter and clean it first.

9) Realize that clearing your counter will lead to some organizing in other areas of your house. (this is a Good thing)

10) Decide what to do with all the papers and clutter.

11) Plan daily to clear  off anything that might have accumulated in this “hot spot” zone and place it in the folders or cubbies you created.

12) Be sure to take before and after pictures so help remind yourself how you want to keep your new clear counter.

Disclosure: The above picture is not from my home (I WISH!) It was from a Parade of Homes model that boasted like the best family organizing center ever!!  But you can find these products at The Pottery Barn.

Email

Email Inbox – Does it Stress You Out?

Our E-mail can be as scary if not scarier than all the papers coming into our houses. We get junk mail, we get offers, we get pictures and letters, then more junk mail.
But sorting through it can be difficult.
I have to admit (as I did on my momtv show last night) that I am not an expert in this form of organizing. I think that might be because I am not techie at all and I am sure there are easier ways to do things on here that I am just not aware of.
Last night I had a great group of people who were teaching me a lot about different things that can help. You can see it if you go to this link on Mom TV
I have tried to still use the basic methods of sorting paper.
1) File
2) Action
3) Trash

To file you need files. So you need to make folders to put things in. I have learned to use the filter option for my inbox. So that things that I don’t necessarily have to read that day, newsletters etc. go directly into that folder. Then I try to look at it everyday and sort through it, but it is ok if I don’t get to it until 2 or even 3 days later. But then I clean it out as I go.

Several people have several e-mail addresses to sort their mail. I have 3 e-mails but it isn’t to sort my mail it is to keep business and personal separate. The 3rd is an old one that I have surveys and a couple point saving things I signed up for in.

I also may be the geek here in that I print out my important information. I have a notebook that I keep for my blogging and it just keeps my head clear of what I have to get done. I think this is because I am still old school at heart and I don’t have my head completely wrapped around keeping everything in my computer folders. I hope to get to a point where I do not feel I need my notebook to feel like I have everything in control.
Thanks to my viewers last night in teaching me some new things!

Here are a couple other posts that might interest you about E-mail Inbox organizing:
Guest blogger Beth from Plus Size Mommy

 

School Papers – Simple Steps to Decrease the Paper Clutter

Papers from school can be harder to deal with than if someone came in and dumped a garage truck full of trash in your driveway. Why? Because they are personal! Your children did them, worked on them and created them. That is why so many mom’s have trouble getting rid of them. They just love to see what their child has accomplished.
So can you keep everything all your kids do from the time the start school until they finish? Sure…if you want to live in a trash zone or store them in a storage unit so they can rot in there.
No..of course you can’t, and better yet, there is no reason you should.

Should you keep a few special papers each year so that you can enjoy them and they can see them when they grow up? Certainly! But only a few.

Here is a guideline to help you decide what papers to keep and what to get rid of.

ONE PAPER PER MONTH PER CHILD.

How is that for simple? It gives you a limit, a guideline and a goal. Can you keep less than that….YES!!

But what if they have 1 really good picture that won a school coloring contest and then an A+ on their first big report, but they are in the same month? Ok…no problem, go back through the other months and decide on which one is not as important to keep as these.
So really it is 12 papers a year. Yes…you can use the summer months as a cushion.

Don’t keep all the worksheets that they do. They are worksheets..just to learn.
Look for the stories they wrote by themselves.
Look for the pictures they did not trace, but drew themselves.
Look for the reports they worked months on and were so proud of.

So what do you do with all the other pictures they drew, science fair projects with huge poster boards?

Take a picture!! Just like the above pictures. My triplets were thrilled to pose with their projects and loved that I liked them enough to take pictures of them. They don’t care if they don’t have that big poster shoved back in some cubby space in the basement anymore. They still have the memories..and that is all we need too.
You can scan them into your computer if small enough and you have the memory space on your computer.

You can create a photo book from some of these online places like Snapfish. Peter Walsh shared this idea on one of his Oprah shows. He said take pictures of their art work (you can put more than one of their pictures in the photo) and then at the end of each school year create one of these photobooks with their art work. There is room to write in the book accomplishments, teacher’s names, accomplishments for the year. This would be much nicer for them to have when they are older than a box full of papers.

You can have a bulletin board that you keep a special paper of the day or of the week on to showcase it if its a little special and they worked hard on it that week. This will make them feel proud. Then when you take it down, if its not that most special paper of the month…throw it away. (They do not need to see you physically throw it away, nor do you have to tell them – they will just be thrilled their new picture is up now.)

If you keep everything….then nothing will seem special!!

Keeping big boxes of papers to give your children is a burden not a gift. They have to deal with getting rid of all the papers you felt to guilty getting rid of.
Being handed one box of things that goes from k-12 is not so bad, and photo books would be even better.

Remember, it is not like you are saying your child isn’t special or you don’t like the work they do by throwing it away. But keeping everything is not feasible if you want to have a home that is comfortable and not cluttered.

Papers…Papers….Papers!!

I did my momtv.com web cast last night on Paper Clutter. I am going to rerun the post that I did several months back, below.
Kristy asked in the comments about the family bringing in all the papers and how to handle that.
Have a “drop zone” for your mail. A basket or bin, some place that everyone in the family knows to put the mail. It may be children’s papers (see this Thursday’s post for Children’s papers)from school too. Any papers coming into the house by anyone needs to go in this designated spot. Then you need to go through all these papers using the system below.
I mentioned last night in my web cast last night that Barbara Hemphill who wrote Taming The Paper Tiger has a basically the same system, but has made it very easy to remember the categories.
She says that every paper coming into the house goes into one of these categories.
F – File
A – Action
T – Trash
This is a real easy way to remember it. It gets broken down a little more than this and I go into it, but this helps you to realize that every paper has a place.

All of us have sooooo many papers coming into our homes everyday. We have bills, magazines, coupons, advertisements, newspapers, and many more. It can get completely over whelming!!! So what do you do with all of them? What do you keep? What do you throw away???
You would think that with the Internet and e-mail that our influx of paper would be greatly reduced, but it has decreased by very little.
Figuring out a way to manage the paper is the key. We have to control the paper and not let the paper control us!! I know that sound so silly, but it can be true.
You need to work out a sorting system for any paper that comes through your door. If you know what to do with it when it comes in..then it hopefully won’t pile up.
Ok…its actually very basic.

You can do it all in 4 sorting bins.
1) Bills
2) Action
3) File
4) Pitch

The Bill bin could very well be in the Action bin, it is an action. But I like to keep them separated so that bills don’t get lost in a pile of things that may not be as important or dated. It can be easy to get behind in your bill paying, and that can cause problems with your credit..not to mention your nerves.

The Action bin is anything that needs attention. Filling out a permission slip for your childs field trip, a form to order that book that you need for a class, a form that needs to be filled out for insurance, etc.

The File bin is any paper that you need to keep (notice I said “need”) and will be filed in a hanging file of a file cabinet.

The Pitch bin should end up being your biggest pile. You do need to pay attention to what goes into the trash can. Having a shredder is important. You want to make sure that you shred anything that has any financial information on it, personal information on it or as some suggest even your name or address. With this age of someone being able to steal your identity, it’s important to be careful.

So when you bring in your mail…take a minute and stand in front of your 4 bins (stackable plastic paper trays work great…and if you have the space, you don’t need to stack them) and sort through it. Take each piece and quickly decide if its an ad and you don’t plan to ever use it…pitch it! If its a bill thats easy. You don’t have to take the time to open your bills at this point, unless you are unsure if it is or not. Take those zillions of credit card offers and put them in the pitch bin! Don’t spend too much time on it. Any ads will come back again and you can always find information on the Internet.

If you take a few minutes each day to go through your papers and sort them then you soon can have a table that looks like this

Kids Art

Kids Artwork – Great Ideas

1) Photograph it

If you have a hard time throwing away their artwork, then one solution is to take pictures of it. You can have it on your computer or in a scrapbook and remember it for years to come. You can now do all kinds of neat things with them.

2) Photo Gifts
I just had mugs made for my Dad and sister for their birthdays with special pictures on them from SnapFish

3) Give them as Gifts

You can give one or two a year to a Grandparent or Aunt and Uncle if you can’t stand to throw it away, but you have your paper for the month. (My rule of saving only one paper for the month…but with most of these ideas, you can actually get rid of all the actual artwork but still see it for years to come!)

4) Frame Them

Frame some of their artwork and hang it. I was just getting a picture framed for a client and there was a woman there with her grandchild’s art work that she was having framed to hang up. She was going to have it hanging in the guest room where her granddaughter stayed when she came to visit. She was using an expensive frame and mat, but the frames above in the picture are only $1.99 at Ikea. There are all kinds of cute colors and they would work great, so you don’t have to spend a lot of money.

5) Art Gallery

I remember growing up that our upstairs hallway was the art gallery. Both my brother and sister are artist and did wonderful work even in grade and high school. My mother had their pieces displayed in the upstairs hallway. They were her favorite pieces. Then if something new came in she would take one down and put the new one up. We all thought that was great and anytime guests came to our house, mom proudly took them upstairs to show them the “art gallery”.

6) Photo Book

I heard a great idea from watching Peter Walsh on Oprah the other day. He suggested taking pictures of your child’s artwork with your digital camera and then putting them in a digital scrapbook. You can use snapfish.com or shutterbug.com, and I also know that Creative Memories(their package for a 20 page book is about $99)does the same thing too. Actually Oprah offered a deal for 48 hours after her show aired for snapfish….you could go and purchase a 20 page hard covered book (normal price is $29.99) and get it for free. (I did have to pay S&H about about $7.50). I did not have pictures of the kids artwork to upload at that point, but I did make a book of our summer vacation this year though. I haven’t received it in the mail yet.
But I do think his idea was great. You could make one of these each year with their artwork and it would be great fun for them to look at through the years and easy to pass on to them when they are grown.

7) Wall Art

Another thing they had on his segment of the Oprah show was to take carpet squares and use double sided tape and tape them to the wall to make a bulletin board. What they showed was using two different colors with two across and 3 down. Then they used that for a bulletin board and hung one piece of the kids artwork in each square to showcase it. This is one way you can change them often.

Let me know if you have any other ideas of what to do with your child’s artwork!

School Paper!

How To Handle All The Kids School Papers

School Papers – What do you do with them all?

Now we have a sorting system for mail and other papers coming into the house. But what about all those school papers that come in everyday?
You also need to work out a similar system to sort those papers.
I have the triplets come in each day (they are in 2nd grade) and take out their folders and put on the couch where I sit so I can go through them. They get their snack and then do any homework they have for the day. While they are getting their snack I am going through their folders.

Sort the Papers
I first of all see if there is any weekly papers to update us for the week from the teacher. They usually send something like that on Monday and Friday. Then I see if there are any homework papers for the kids to do. Once I have pulled those out to read in a few minutes…I go through the rest of the papers. Most of them are worksheets with a few pictures thrown in. If there is anything really special, like a story they made up with pictures then you can set it aside to keep it. I recommend only keeping at the most one paper per month. Yes…per month!! Think about it. That is still 12 papers per child per year. Multiply that times 12 years in school and that is still a lot of papers to store! It is enough to remember what level they were on and to see how they drew.

Blended Family
Our situation may and hopefully is different from yours in that since this is my 2nd marriage and these are my step kids. So I have to save all the papers so that their mom can see them when they go to her house at the end of the week. I have a folder that I keep all the papers in for the week from the kids. At the end of the week on Friday when they are going to go home with their mom I put all their papers in one of the kids book bags so that their mom gets to see everything. We let their mom keep those special papers for them. If there is something that we really like, we make a copy of it and give the original to their mom. Then when they come back to our house again in a week, they will have a boat load of papers that their mom kept for us to see.

Ok to Get Rid of School Papers.

We go through those to see what happened that week and read everything. After we have seen everything and have gone through it with the children (if necessary), then I throw them away. (recycle)

You don’t have to feel guilty about throwing these away!! These are worksheets for the most part. If you keep everything….then nothing will seem special.
I have heard some mothers say that they want to keep everything to give their child when they grow up. Is this really a favor you are doing for them? You hand them over boxes and boxes of papers. Now they have to go through them and either throw them away or store them (more clutter)themselves. They may enjoy looking at a few of them, and if there was just a few from each year it would be fun. But if its all their stuff then it is cruel to do to them. You are basically giving them boxes of guilt so they can decide what to do with it and its off your chest now. I think that you would find that most kids wouldn’t want you to keep everything they did.

What To do with Special Papers and Pictures
You can have a bulletin board that you keep a special paper of the day or of the week on to showcase it if its a little special and they worked hard on it that week. This will make them feel proud. Then when you take it down, if its not that most special paper of the month…throw it away. The kids don’t have to know you are throwing it away, chances are they will never miss them. I have done this for years with my kids and my step kids and I can not think of a single time that the kids have been upset or realized that their papers were gone.

Remember, it is not like you are saying your child isn’t special or you don’t like the work they do by throwing it away. But keeping everything is not feasible if you want to have a home that is comfortable and not cluttered.