Declutter paperwork12/28/2023 Like this? Subscribe to the Good Housekeeping newsletter.The good news is that you can get rid of many paper records that formerly were necessary to hang on to - at least before the dawn of the electronic age. That way you know exactly what size filing cabinet to buy (you can buy more than one if necessary!) If you have the space, then wait until you've sorted all the paperwork before buying the drawers. Remember if you want to assign a drawer for passports, spare keys and so on then it is worth investing in lockable drawers for security purposes. Don’t over-complicate the system by adding in confusing colour coding or subcategories. A dining room table is great, for example. Ideally, set aside an undisturbed area to sort your paperwork, so you can take a break when you need to and come back to it without everything having been moved. It’s much better that you take your time and have breaks than to simply panic and give up because you attempt to do too much at once. If you have a big stack of paperwork built up, it could take a number of sessions over several days to sort everything. Be realistic about how long this will take you. If there are any documents you believe you really need to hold onto (a quick Google should help with this) then you could consider having an archive box for old paperwork, which you can keep in a loft or cupboard. MORE: 5 GOLDEN RULES FOR DECLUTTERING YOUR WARDROBE Once a drawer starts to get full, go to the bottom of the drawer (where the oldest documents are) and review whether you still need them. It either gets filed straight away into the correct drawer, or goes into the ‘action’ tray to be dealt with. You now have a very clear system for paperwork as it enters your house. Clearly label the contents of that drawer on the front of the filing cabinet. Step 6: Sort the remaining papers into date order, and place them into one of the drawers in the filing cabinet. Whenever you have a free half hour in the future, you can come to this tray and start working through it. Step 5: Put anything that needs to be actioned into the letter tray, which will sit on top of the filing cabinet. MORE: 6 THINGS YOU NEED TO SHRED RIGHT NOW By the end you should (hopefully) have a much smaller pile. Get rid of anything that can be recycled or shredded, and pull out any items that need to be ‘actioned’. Step 4: Now it’s time to work through each pile methodically. ‘medical’, ‘bills’, ‘receipts’ and so on). Don’t get waylaid by the content or sorting them into date order at this point for now you are just categorising everything into neat piles (e.g. Step 3: Start to sort all the pieces of paperwork you have into categories on the floor. Step 2: Clear a large space – perhaps a dining table, or space on the floor where you can lay out piles of paper without them being disturbed. Step 1: Gather together every scrap of paperwork from the house, from documents you’ve already stashed away to new letters that have just plopped onto the doormat. Here’s how to get organised and never be overwhelmed by paperwork EVER again…ġ multi-drawer filing cabinet (Bisley makes good ones) That’s why we asked Vicky Silverthorn, a professional organiser, to share her fool-proof paperwork sorting system with us.
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