Papers
Paperwork, mail, to-do lists, school forms, magazines, birthday cards… paper is part of our life. For some of us, those papers pile up on table tops, making our desks inaccessible, or hide in unused backpacks and overflowing drawers. Or maybe you’ve just got one tidy pile that annoys you because it’s always subliminally yelling at you. Regardless of the quantity, that nagging feeling that something is lurking inside it all won’t go away. But purging your papers is not impossible. It is time consuming, no need to sugar coat it. But it’s a HUGE relief once it’s under control. Bonus: getting your paperwork cleaned up will make doing your taxes way easier.
Step 1: Consolidate
Grab a cardboard box, plastic bin, or big bag, and go on a paper hunt. You want to consolidate all the random piles and collections of papers to the same location. This includes sentimental papers like cards, loose pictures, and scrapbooking supplies that aren’t already in their own box. Find all the old receipts from bags and purses, and pamphlets and kids artwork crammed between books on the bookshelf. If it’s made of paper and doesn’t truly belong on the bookshelf, bring it to your sorting station.
The one place I want you to leave alone, is the filing cabinet, if the contents inside are labeled. If you’ve been treating your filing cabinet as a drop zone and nothing is sorted or actually filed, then take all that to the sorting station too.
Step 2: Set up your sorting station.
Get yourself two paper bags or cardboard boxes and write on them in large letters SHRED and RECYCLE. Grab a few more boxes or bags for the macro-categories for sorting. You could also use a post-it to label empty sections of your table. Use the macro-categories in Step 3 as a guide for how many boxes or piles you’ll need.
*don't worry if you don’t have a shredder. I hate home shredding machines. Here’s a link help you find alternatives.
*This article is geared towards personal paperwork, but for many of us, lots of work-work happens at home and it generates a lot of paper. Separate work papers from personal papers, so you can appropriately prioritize your time to deal with it all after they’ve been sorted.
Step 3: Start sorting
Be prepared to recycle and shred A LOT. This is the hardest step because you have to make a ton of small decisions and it’s normal to get worn out or bored pretty quickly. Remember, right now, you are not “dealing” with any of the papers, you are only sorting them.
This is a good place to pause and talk about time. I wouldn’t be able to get anything done if it wasn’t for these cute little egg timers. There’s a productivity tool called the Pomodoro Technique, the gist of which is that you can endure any boring or dreaded chore for twenty minutes. Or five minutes, which is the adhd version, no judgement. When the timer goes off, you have permission to stop. But if you’re in it and have hit a flow, keep going.
Even if you only can get twenty minutes of sorting completed today, that’s progress! Here’s the key: Only sort. You don’t need to take any actions. Right now you only have to put each item in the right pile. Staying focused on only sorting can be a challenge, so keep post-its or a paper handy to make a list of any side-quests that pop into your head during this process.
Here are the categories you should make spaces to separate your papers into.
URGENT Action Items: includes things whose deadlines are imminent or have already passed. Separate personal action items from work-related action items, and try not to get stressed. This is like a fact-finding expedition. You’re just taking stock and making sure these papers are prominent and easy to find for working time.
Semi-Urgent Action items: things that need to be dealt with within 30 days. I’d add old to-do lists to this pile too. Within 30 days, you should look through those and see if there’s anything on them that needs to be turned into a real reminder, or if the whole thing can go to the shredder.
Non-Urgent Action items and Projects: things that you’d like to deal with but if there is a deadline, it’s not for a few months.
**Tax season is approaching, so a special pile/folder/big envelope for tax docs and supporting evidence (like receipts) is probably a good idea, just label it in Large letters.
**Medical forms and papers are a common and bulky category that build up often because we don’t know what to keep and what to shred. Create a special bag/box/pile just for these if you expect to find a lot of them.
Relevant Current Information: What to do with the printed class schedule for the new yoga studio or the school lunch menu? I ran out of ideas for examples of these pretty fast, but it’s a category I know exists. These are papers that don’t require action, have information on them that we want, aren't important enough to take up space in the filing cabinet, have no sentimental value, and will eventually be outdated. It’s nice for them to live somewhere accessible or even get posted on a bulletin board, but many of these will probably already be outdated and need to be recycled.
Things to File: filing is technically an action but it’s not urgent. Later when you’re going through this pile you can decide if things need to be digitized and then shredded or if the hard copy deserves space in the filing cabinet.
Sentimental items: cards, pictures, kid’s artwork, and ephemera. If you have no problem reading a card and tossing it in the recycling, yay, do that! But many people like to hold onto these for a while and that’s ok too. Ephemera is defined as “printed items that were originally expected to have a short term use, but may be collectibles.” Today is not the day to judge yourself for holding onto this stuff. If you don’t want to keep it, put it in the recycling. If you want to keep it, add it to the sentimental box. (I prefer plastic bins for sentimental stuff so they’re more protected from accidental water-damage and mold )
Things to read: If you’ve clipped articles, printed out essays, or held onto magazines and pamphlets to read, and they’re more than six months old, say out loud “I may never read this” and then see if your instinct says recycle it or keep it anyways. For the keepers, macro-organize one layer deeper. Separate them into two categories: Work related materials and Personal Interests. If it falls under personal interests, but feels like homework, RECYCLE it! Hobbies and interests are meant to make your life richer, not to pile on guilt for not doing them. There will always be more things to read.
Crafting items: You may or may not need a box for this, but if there’s a chance stickers, stencils, craft paper, or things you’ve saved for collaging, are in the consolidated mass of paper, make sure these get their own box, so they don’t get mixed up with your sentimental stuff.
Step 4: Dealing with things
Again, getting your paperwork under control is not a one day job. I like using a cardboard box for the big consolidation and then plastic bins for the macro-categories, so they can all be stacked in a corner or shoved in a closet when you need your table back for dinner.
If you’ve got everything separated into those macro-categories, GREAT JOB! You just created a system for prioritizing your paperwork. Here’s some tips on getting each category under control.
Urgent and Semi-urgent Action Items: make time to take care of that business ASAP. (timers can be handy here if you’ve been putting off these jobs for a reason) Once a week, check on your semi-urgent pile to see what has graduated to Urgent. Once something has been dealt with, decide if it goes in the shredding bag or the filing pile. If there are follow up steps, throw a post-it on the top with the next steps and put it in the appropriate urgency pile. The finish line of an action item is not just when the most urgent step is taken, it’s when the entire thing can be shredded or filed away.
Non-Urgent Action Items or Projects: For adhd folks, urgency is often a requirement before action can happen. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with manufacturing that urgency. Making appointments with professional services or committing to a deadline with an accountabilibuddy might create enough urgency to make progress.
To keep your projects organized, I’ll tell you what works for me. I like clipboards. Each project gets its own clipboard and maybe a post-it on top with a title and list of next steps. I’ve tried folders, but the contents cease to exist when I can’t see them. If you’ve got the space, drawers can be designated for different projects and important papers. Everybody’s systems will be a little different. If it works for you, it’s working, and if it’s not working, try something else.
Sentimental Items: This can get tucked away. I like to keep mine somewhat accessible because I know there will always be a slow stream of things going into it, and when nothing more can be crammed inside, once every couple of years or so, I spend an hour sitting on the floor, feeling some feelings, and decide what I’m ready to recycle, maybe take a picture of, or keep a little longer. (the key to not letting this get out of control is to have only one box) **If you would be super embarrassed if a loved one saw it if you suddenly passed away, maybe shred or burn that sooner than later. (search Swedish Death Cleaning, it’s not as morbid as it sounds)
Miscellaneous: Things to read belong where you might actually read them and crafting supplies belong with other crafting supplies. For the filing pile, I like to keep mine literally on top of the filing cabinet so when I need to get something out, I might as well put a few things away while I’m in there. Like I said, clearing out filing cabinets is a whole other article, but to get a jump start, anytime you're in there, if you see something that you don’t ever need again, like the vet records of a pet that passed away a decade ago, throw it in the shredding bag.
(I’m not suggesting you aren’t allowed to save something memorable of your beloved pet, but vet records aren’t that),
Step 5: Maintenance
Those two bags we made in Step 2 for recycling and shredding are the minimum requirements for maintaining the papers coming into your home. Snail mail is the most consistent source of paper, so when you pick up the mail, walk directly to the recycle/shred bags, and spend 30 seconds sorting out the junk. Anything that says “to resident” goes in the recycling, no worries about identity theft there. If you don’t have time to sort out the shredding, shred it all. The extra cents in shredding fees might be worth the saved time. From now on, if a sentimental thing lands in your hands you have a box for that. Every paper that comes into your home either belongs in one of those macro-categories or needs to be recycled/shredded. If you commit to making those decisions as they come at you, and the recycling and shred bags are easily accessible, the papers won’t pile up and should stay more manageable.
Your Just Rewards:
Consider this purge as an exercise to build your paper decision making skills. If something doesn’t require action, isn’t worth the trip to the sentimental box, or contains info you can easily find online, it can be recycled. If the papers don’t feel worthy of you taking time to prioritize them as urgent, semi-urgent, or a project, then it should probably be shredded.
Getting your paperwork under control means reclaiming precious tabletop/shelf/drawer space, but more importantly, you get your awareness back. If there aren’t huge piles for things to disappear in, there’s no more anxiety about what might be lurking in all that paper.
Good Luck and Happy Purging!