Controlling Paper

By now you may have realized that I am a big advocate for saving as little paper as possible. I think the shredder should be your BFF (that’s Best Friend Forever).



So I’m going to give you some suggestions for limiting the amount of paper that comes into your home:

To stop all the unwanted catalogs go to this website http://www.catalogchoice.org/
It’s so easy, even you can do it!
Next, to stop all those credit card applications go to https://www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi
To opt out of ads or informational mailers go to https://www.dmachoice.org/dma/member/regist.action
And while were on the subject of stopping unwanted interruptions, there’s also a National Do Not Call Registry at https://www.donotcall.gov/
This allows you to opt out of telemarketers calls

Now that we have limited the amount of paper coming into your home, let’s set up some procedures for controlling the remaining paper:
1. Designate a specific place for bringing the mail into your home as well as other papers from work, school, and such.
2. Use letter trays, wall pockets, baskets, mail sorters, any type of container to sort the papers immediately upon bringing them into your home or office. The smaller the better so that you will keep up with the maintenance. Examples of categories would be action or to-do, bills to pay, something from your child for you to read or sign in order for them to return it to school, and to file. Also, use a Post-it or Clip-rite tab to remind you what action needs to be done. Please resist the urge to randomly pile the papers on your desk in hopes of getting to them later. Sorting the papers as you bring them in really will save you time in the long run. Spend a few minutes now to save hours later.
3. Any unnecessary papers are to be shredded right then, so keep the shredder in this same location. Again and I can’t stress this enough, resist the urge to pile the papers on your desk or kitchen counter to deal with later. You and I both now what will really happen and it isn’t pretty.
4. Now schedule a daily or weekly time to deal with your pre-sorted papers. Make the needed phone calls, pay the bills, go over your children’s school work, and file and shred as appropriate.

I’d like to give you some guidelines on saving paper:

1. You’ll want to save any papers/receipts that your accountant recommends for tax purposes. Please contact your accountant for what they suggest.
Again sort as you collect. Resist that urge to toss in a shoe box to sort on April 14.
2. Save only documents that you cannot easily get elsewhere.
3. Save only documents that you will truly want to access. If you can not come up with one really good reason as to why you may want to refer to this document in the future, then you probably don’t really need to save it.

Let me know what obstacles are getting in your way of controlling your paperwork. Remember organization is a lifestyle choice. It will not happen overnight, but with baby steps and implementing some new procedures and systems, you can be on your way to getting organized.