Seriously, though, as I finished up last week's Project Simplify challenge to purge and organize my side of the master closet, I thought, "Man, this paper clutter around the house is annoying."
Voila! Hot Spot #2 is paper clutter!
And I definitely have some.
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| Where papers go to die at my house. |
I'm quite relieved to say that the situation is actually not as dire as it was in, say, January. I took advantage while being trapped in our house during Snowmageddon '11 to file the 3 years worth of papers that had accumulated in one massive mountain in our master closet. Seriously, people, I was finding paperwork from our mortgage closing that had never seen the inside of a file folder.
So, attacking the current amount of paper clutter wasn't nearly as intimidating as it could've been. I gathered my stuff.
-"sentimental" shoebox for stuff I want to keep but don't know what to do with
-existing file box for bills, statements, etc
-gift bag in which we throw all the of mailings from Chris's retirement accounts, since we never know what to do with them (and wouldn't dare read them and risk dying from boredom)
-existing file box for class/school related documents
-the rounded up paper clutter from the corners of the house
-Diet Dr. Pepper AKA afternoon delight (don't judge, Candra!)
I turned on an old episode of The Office and got to work. And since I had a pretty small "before" pile, my "after" pile is somewhat anticlimactic looking.
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| The shoebox and pile still need to be "handled" but it's a start, right? |
So, how is tackling the paper clutter going for you this week?
go you! thanks for motivating me. if i wasn't wiping three diarrhea butts back to back i might pull my pile of papers out too. i really really hope to get to it before we move---no need to move junk we don't need.
ReplyDeletei have very similar files that you had. "to do, keepsake, file" i have this great little organizer i got from ikea. i did a pretty good organize before leaving for Ohio, but that was nearly 9 months ago---soooo i'm due for another mass file in front of The Office
I throw stuff away mostly.
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't do that. I may need some of it one day.
Ugh. I have a feeling Tsh is inside my head too and knew I was dreading this one. Pretty sure I'm not going to be able to finish this by the end of the week but I'll be happy with two weeks. I have the opposite problem to Carrie - we keep everything. We have three huge filing cabinets and several storage boxes of files. Part of my goal is going though the old stuff and paring down to nearly what you've got going on Lindsey, and setting better boundaries for what gets to stay in the future. Well done!
ReplyDeleteWe have a file cabinet drawer at our house that we throw all our retirement stuff in. WHY OH WHY do they have to send us all that stuff soooo often!?!?!
ReplyDeleteFeeling your pain!
L to the OL. :) You KILL me! And my paper clutter could eat yours for lunch - I believe you when you say it was bad before snowmageddon, but I just think too highly of you to imagine it THAT bad. :o)
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