Like you, I struggle with paper. I no sooner get my desk cleared off than it gets covered up again with the next day’s mail. I’ve written about my struggle and my strategies for mastering paper in some of my previous organizing tips, most notably Divide and Conquer the Pile and What Color is Your Desk? Attacking a pile of paper is very intimidating. It can be time-consuming to figure out what needs to be done with each piece of paper. If you’re like…
Read more →Have you ever felt stressed because you knew you had bills due but weren’t sure where the bills were or if you had missed the deadline? Have you ever been charged a late fee? Have you ever spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out a bill payment that was never received? If these sound like common occurrences in your life, I have three words for you: automatic bill pay.
Read more →I have previously written about how to greatly reduce your pile of snail mail by opening the envelopes, removing the fluff, and unfolding the important papers. (See Honey, I Shrunk the Mail.) In that organizing tip, I coined the term “paper thickness”. A single piece of paper is one paper thickness. A piece of paper folded in thirds, such as when inserted into a business envelope, is three paper thicknesses – three times as thick as when it is unfolded. An envelope is two…
Read more →In this age of electronic greetings, it’s delightful to get an honest-to-goodness card in the mail. Someone went to the trouble to buy the card, sign it, address it, stamp it, and mail it. That person must really like you! Getting a birthday or anniversary or congratulations or thank you card, with a personal message in it – and in your friend or relative’s familiar handwriting – feels great. But then what?
Read more →Very often, when I am helping a client go through a huge pile of paper clutter, the client insists that any piece of paper that has his/her name and address on it must be shredded. I have tried to convince my clients that this wasn’t necessary — after all, your name and address are easily obtained on the Internet –but most of them were not reassured. Thus I was excited when I heard about a class last year for organizers on the…
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