For Olivia who asked for a post on paper clutter:
Many of us find ourselves inundated with paper. It’s almost as though on some primitive Jungian level we still know that paper is precious, the written word is precious. We save and amass paper. We create personal libraries in books, and personal directories of material in our file cabinets.
I wasn’t immune. It’s Tanja here remember? I was flooded with paper during my packrat days.
I got a two drawer filing cabinet when I was young. I always assumed I’d graduate to a full size one later on. I kept it full of all the special things people keep. Bad writing, good writing, novel outlines and research notes, completed drafts of items sent out, art pieces I’d done, random sketches and doodles that showed more promise than the rest, for when I’d batik again.
I kept love letters from old flames, special poems and whimsies from friends and family, cards with meaningful messages. I also kept user manuals for all of the important things I purchased, instruction sheets for smaller items, directions to different places, brochures on vacation spots, recipes for cooking/gardening/etc/etc.
At some point the filing cabinet became too disorganized, and I abandoned it. My papers started learning how to pile in paper drifts all over my home. I had some contained in tubs, and other piles perched precariously on edges of desks, tops of coffee tables, on the floor next to the couch, in the corner of the bedroom.
Every single piece of paper felt so important to me, see?
That was the problem.
I’d look at the pile. I’d try to sort it. But my brain couldn’t figure out which ones it would be o.k. to get rid of.
I had amassed a huge amount of random paper in my life and I didn’t want to take the time to deal with it. It had become the proverbial albatross around my neck.
I was shackled to an unwieldy mass of tree pulp… and the stupid part was I couldn’t figure out which parts I needed to save. It was consuming a tiny spot of my time, my focus, my energy, my life.
And I wanted all that back.
It Took Time
No short and easy solutions here. I gathered and then I sorted repeatedly. I got rid of useless receipts first, owners manual to things we didn’t own anymore, the easily identifiable junk.
And then I sorted again, trying to get all the papers to fit into just two big plastic storage tubs. It took a few tries and then I got there.
And then I sorted. And… yeah you got it, I sorted again.
With each culling I pulled out as much as I could bear to part with and threw it in our recycling bag.
A Tipping Point
At one point towards the end of that serious length of sorting I came to an important realization. I realized that 99.9% of the paper I thought was so valuable actually didn’t have any place in my life at all.
It was junk.
My paper monster was made of catalogs tempting me to spend my money, credit card offers of people trying to lure me into borrowing money, receipts as proof of where temptation had led me astray, and a million unfinished projects, ideas, or things that were so important I would do them sometime in the future. ;0
I realized even the papers I thought were so precious, most of them were junk too.
I spent something like three years off and on decluttering my life, and decluttering my paper. It took a long time, a ridiculously long time and in the end I learned one important concept:
I learned to value the space paper takes up in my life more than I value paper.
Take that sentence and apply it to anything.
I learned to value the space that old treadmill takes up in my life more than I valued that old treadmill.
I learned to value my time and my space more than I valued the things, the paper, the clutter, the busyness.
So I got rid of the things, the paper, the clutter and the busyness.
Learn to value your space. your time. And see what happens to the stacks of paper around you. Watch them shrink and transform. Watch your life transform.
Action Plans and Three Step Programs
Patrick read through this post before I published it and he said, “Where’s the action steps?”
Sometimes you want to hear, “Get three boxes, and start by….”
And sometimes something on the more inspirational end of the spectrum can be even more powerful, and sometimes just hearing another person’s story on the subject can be the tipping point that gets you tossing tree pulp out of your life.
I wasted a lot of my life gathering too much stuff and then even more of my life conscientiously pouring over each item trying to determine if it had a space in my life.
I had to do something radical, something very, very different than anything I’d ever done before or I was going to have a pile of “must-go-through-papers” in my life forever, and I didn’t want to be one of those people, old and alone with all their stuff, no room for people in their life, for life in their life.
It was time for some tough decisions.
So I told myself that none of the papers were important. It was the only way for me to free myself of them.
I continued to sort through my papers, reducing the amount saved each time I went through them. I started off by trying to stack all paper I found in place in my home. Then I started going through each piece as I picked it up. At that point I was working on a “tubs full of paper” level of disorganization.
It was time-consuming and slow, but I worked through each piece.
As I did, I threw away a bunch of old junk, like receipts I didn’t need and user manuals to things I no longer owned. While I did this I got annoyed that I was having to spend my time sorting through old paperwork that didn’t even matter.
As a result of that, I started becoming more aware of how much I was bringing in.
I started taking steps to curb the amount of paper coming in.
I cancelled magazine subscriptions, stopped all of the catalogs that were coming to my house, and learned (with difficulty) not to bring as many free magazines home from work every month. I also learned to put a date on them and make myself give them away by that date even if I hadn’t read them.
Now
I’m as close to a paperless life as I can be.
-I have one large accordion file that houses important documents like my Finnish citizenship approval, car title and land contract. My rule is, if the file gets full it’s time to sort it again. It’s narrowed down the truly important at this point, the 0.01%.
-The other paper in my life is one spiral bound notebook. I use it to jot thoughts and important save this concepts down. When the notebook gets full, I go through it page by page and see if anything is worth keeping. If it is, I input it into my laptop. I find I keep very little from the notebooks, but I tremendously enjoy the act of brainstorming my thoughts in one. It’s my one place where I can be scatter-storm creative. I love having an ever-changing notebook, and I love how notes to self and everything else land tidily in between it’s cover instead of on post-its across my home.
-The last category of paper I have are a very few special heirloom items like my passport as a baby, my favorite piece of writing by my father, and his obituary.
What I Do for Maintenance
-Sort through mail within a few days of it coming in.
-Cut back on incoming mail in the form of junk mail and catalogs.
-Unsubscribed from physical newsletters and mailing lists.
-Threw away all post-it notes and to-do list style “tear-off-a-sheet” paper pads. (They’re messy!)
-Set myself limits. When my accordion file feels too full, something has to go. I sort and purge the file several times a year.
Simple Living Action Steps
-Just start. Pick one small pile, spend ten minutes a day just focus on one question: Is this piece of paper trash or do I need it?
-Gather all of your papers and store them in one zone of your home. It’s a good first step for regaining control of the paper in your life (even if you’re still at broad tub-like levels of papers like I was).
-Vow to just throw away receipts. Spend twenty minutes this week throwing away every receipt you find to something you won’t be returning or don’t need for warranty purposes.
-Contemplate how paper is entering your life and how you can slow it down. It’s easier to stop before the threshold than take the time later determining it’s value in your life.
Ratty Conversations
Is paper controlling your life? Or are you in charge? Ask your questions here or offer your awesome paper handling strategies. :)
p.s. This started off as an opening section to a chapter in Unstuffed. You’ll see a polished (and longer) version appearing in the finished book. I’ve been having fun sharing sneak previews of my writing projects with you here. :) Also, I will be working on Simple Celebrations and Unstuffed again this week, so I won’t be around quite as much on Minimalist Packrat this week. Wish me luck! (And thanks to each of you who has contributed a piece for Simple Celebrations. You all rock!)
p.p.s. I’m settling down on my latest site redesign. I’ve got it set at 900 pixels wide. Is anyone still having difficulty with the size? Do you have to horizontally scroll to read it? I shrunk it a bit to help accommodate some smaller screen resolutions.
SUCH a great post! Now if only I could get my dad to read and understand this. He plagues my parents’ house and his office with boxes and boxes of papers! He’s a teacher, so keeps papers to show students about current events (even when they aren’t current anymore) and student projects. It drives my mother insane! I think this may also be a reason I keep very little paper! I have a few cards & journals from when I was little and one file box for all of our important papers. I love to purge that thing, especially when I no longer need all the tax info. I also have a special spot in my “office” (less than a shelf in a closet ) where I put papers needing to be filed or attended to. Also, for all the papers that have to be shredded, you can compost that paper if your recycling program won’t take shredded paper! It’s cool to see it go back to the Earth :)
Megyn @ Minimalist Mommi recently posted..Minute Accomplishments
Hey Megyn,
Thanks so much for sharing that. I originally had a piece about my dad in here too and then I hacked it out for brevity. He sounds a lot like yours with the papers everywhere. He was a writer and he kept every draft of everything he ever wrote. I never figured out how my mom managed to keep him contained to the office. ;) When he passed away we had a big project working through his papers.
I like your idea of composting the shredded paper. I don’t have a shredder (it’s one of the things I downsized) but hmmm, maybe it works with hand-ripped paper too. Right now we recycle paper. Anyone out there know if the dyes in paper would be bad for a compost pile?
Tanja,
I’m not sure if it’s bad for the compost, but I’ve put printed papers in there. Also, this was such an inspirational post that I went through my memory box and chucked a bunch of papers, old agendas, etc. Thanks for this!!
Megyn @ Minimalist Mommi recently posted..Minute Accomplishments
I LOVE paper! Always have. When I was a little girl we lived next to a grocery store. One day they threw out a ton of paper – receipt books, invoices – you name it. I actually rescued all that paper. Now I’m all grown up and have discovered the word “ephemera” which is a really classy thing to call paper clutter.
You’ll be happy to know that I no longer collect paper (except for notebooks of which I have a gazillion.)
Your site shows up well on my computer except I think the font color is really hard to read. It’s too light for this old gal.
Adrienne recently posted..Let’s talk about grilled corn on the cob…
Hey Adrienne,
Rescuing the paper. Isn’t it strange to feel that way? I’ve done similar things too. I just wrote something about when I rescued a hat box of old black and white photos from a thrift store. I was rescuing them like you rescued the paper.
I switched the main text font from dark grey back to straight black. Is the font style and size easy enough to read?
Much better…thanks
Adrienne recently posted..Let’s talk about grilled corn on the cob…
Very timely topic. I’ve been on a rampage lately of discarding paper but I have adopt the no-review approach. I tossed a large box of receipes that I had copied or cut out without looking at them as I collect recipes and cookbooks for a fantasy self that cooks! I knew if I started going through them I would just waste time and find a reason to keep some of them. I tossed tons of “how-to” and self help articles for same reason. There is really no reason to have this type of information printed when you can do an internet search and find articles or videos on how to make or cook anything. I reduce all of my papers to a small plastic 8 1/2 by 11 inch portable file case that fits in my closet floor. It contains my medical records, continuing education required for my nursing license and stuff like that. Like you, this is all of the paper storage that I am going to allow. My next task is to tackle the albums of photos and box of genealogy research materials but I have gotten started scanning things into the computer so I am on my way. Thanks for your post and the new width is perfect for my computer.
Hey Barb,
Thanks for sharing this. It sounds like you’ve gotten a grip on it all, and wow, a no-review dumping, you’re brave. I only ever managed that a few times (towards the end) when I was tired of looking through every single thing I owned again. I think it’s wonderful you’re doing that. :)
About recipes, my most exotic recipe that my fantasy self held onto was a printed out recipe for Injera, the spongy Ethiopian flatbread. I love Ethiopian food on the rare occasions I’ve found myself close to an Ethiopian restaurant, but that doesn’t mean I’m transforming into an international Betty Crocker with a flair for baking any kind of bread…. Hee! I dumped that recipe and every other one I’d been holding onto, just like you. The internet has so many recipes I couldn’t find a reason to keep recipe books and printouts. ;)
p.s. Thanks for letting me know the width works out well for you. Cool!
As you will read below, I am overrun with papers, but I wanted to mention something about recipes. I used to pull from magazines or even print recipes off. Now I use Evernote, the free version, which allows me to “clip” any recipe (or article) and file away online for me to easily find and use. So rather than continuing to add to my paper recipe pile, now I am building a virtual pile online! At least it is easy to find what I put there!
Bernice
Living the Balanced Life recently posted..Decluttering your mind
Love this post! I used to keep manuals and recipe clippings. I have found that most manuals are availabke in pdf form to download off the manufacturers website. I tried keeping my recipe clippings in a binder but now locate them online and save them in a favorites folder on my ipod for easy access, whether in the kitchen, or at the store looking for a recipes ingredients.
Good suggestions :) I also keep a notebook like you do!
One other helpful thing I’ve done is create a file folder entitled “Receipts – Working File.” If I feel I “need” to keep a receipt (for shipment tracking, returning, whatever), I stick it in that folder. Every month or so, I go through the folder and purge what’s not necessary!
Hah! What timing. I just went through my pile of papers yesterday and threw away most of them. If I was really going to cook from those recipes or do those activities wouldn’t I have already done so by now?
Next on my paper list of things to do is scan photos so the albums can go away.
I do most of my blog reading nowadays on my iPad. Your blog reads fine there.
Linda Sand recently posted..New Apartment
Hey Linda,
Congrats on your new settled down spot in the world. :) Good for you scanning your photos! That’s awesome. I went the other approach. I recognized I was too lazy to scan them so I downsized them to a small amount. I occasionally take a photo of my photo and get a digital copy of it that way. Hey, I think I should have named my blog The Lazy Minimalist instead of Minimalist Packrat. :)
p.s. Thanks for letting me know it looks all right on an ipad. I don’t have an ipad so I can’t test it for myself. :)
It has become easier for me to declutter paper, but it is still one of my biggeste problem decluttering. And I keep postponing looking through paperstacks. Part of the problem is I keep a lot of assignments for my job – Im a teacher – and you never know when you might need a paper about nouns. What to do, when paper is important for your job? It is also hard for me to part with old letters and birthdays cards from my familly. But Im working on it – like you wrote: i would rather spend my time with my family than spending time maintaining and reorganizing paper.
Hi Anette,
It sounds like paperwork on the job is a really big issue for a lot of people, especially teachers and administrators. I’ve been climbing backwards up my comment string, so go check out what I wrote to Willow below. It’s just one experience with downsizing that I was able to do in an administrative environment.
You never know when you might need a paper about nouns, but is it worth it to keep the paper about nouns, or could you instead, join a very inexpensive network that shares papers to teachers as needed? I’ve seen something like this before I just can’t remember the url. It had a low monthly membership and hundreds of already completed lesson plans based on grade and curriculum. I’m kicking myself for not remembering the name of the website. It was done by a teacher and I was really impressed.
I’ll never forget your comment about me having “post it note” clutter. Every time I look at a post it note I think of you (fondly) and say, “This is clutter.” But I still have them. As I try to use up my stash (they actually come in handy sometimes for homeschooling), I’m vowing never to buy them again.
Your one notebook idea has revolutionized my life! It’s so freeing to have one space to write things down. I recently bought myself a beautiful notebook for this very thing!
Jill Foley recently posted..Time Alone
Jill,
I’m sure that you can contain yourself enough to use post-it notes judiciously! I just can’t trust myself with them. I used to have post-it notes peeling off my computer, the walls around it, and stacked up in unsticky used piles all over my desk and in my drawers. I’m dangerous with a post-it, the notebook keeps me contained. :)
You probably have one or two post-its very carefully arranged with your girls schoolwork, like a tab system. I can see it in my mind and it works perfect for you. :)
But I am glad you’re trying the one notebook concept out. It really is incredible!
Ha ha! You know me so well. You are so right….it’s a very organized use of post-it notes. If you were to walk through my house, you would likely not see any post-it notes!
Jill Foley recently posted..Serious Clutter – Two Stories / One Day
Wow! So much here to comment on.
Like you, I keep a little notebook to scribble thoughts, ideas, phone numbers in.
Because I’m a teacher who has no classroom or desk, I have to keep all my papers here at the house. I devoted a drawer of my file cabinet to it and try to limit it to that one drawer. Teaching six classes a week and having the physical papers for each class to hand out to students, I have a lot of papers. My lesson plans and (almost all) resource papers are all in my computer and I have a notebook with printouts of each to take to class with me. Since doing my teaching this way, I’ve discovered that I need post its all over to help me organize the papers; otherwise I’m always losing them! However, having all the papers does force me to stay organized and on top of the piles.
I’m slowly but surely weeding through my other papers–yes, it’s a slow process.
Recipes: Several years ago, I had to be transportation for my son as he was doing some early early morning military stuff–I’d drop him off, drive to the nearest Starbuck’s and order a cup of coffee and type, type, type all the recipes I intended to keep into my computer and organized them in categories–cookies, breads, rice, vegan, etc. Then I threw out all those individual recipe cards. I also keep a print out of a few recipes in a binder b/c I don’t like always having my laptop so close to the messy food I’m making.
The most important words I can think of for dealing with paperwork are BACK UP EVERYTHING!
Willow, I bet being a teacher means you need to keep lots of paper in your life! I’d love to hear how teachers and administrators simplify their paper load. Any takers out there?
My dear friend who I won’t mention by name took me on as an administrative assistant to help with the load of paper she’d inherited from the previous manager. She had an entire office with data extending back thirty years. It was so mired in the past and yet she wasn’t given space to store these documents elsewhere.
I personally went through every single bankers box in her office and sifted each piece of paper according to the paramaters of importance she laid out for me. 95% of those boxes then moved into an organized and dated stack in a small hardly used back room. They were then taken by the city to be micro-fisched in case anyone every needed to recall the documents.
Her office was completely different when we were done with it. It wasn’t perfect, but we created a lot of space for her. We carefully and prudently threw away papers that were not required to be kept by law, we arranged to have the majority of what was kept recorded by other workers (not out of her budget) and we cleared up enough room where she could focus on the present management of the facility.
It’s a bit of a ramble here, but it’s proof that change can happen even when one is required to keep papers, it just takes a little elbow grease to cut it back.
But what about the tax stuff? I have a small freelance business, and it seems there are 2 FAT super-size envelopes of paper that I have to keep in case I get visited by the tax man. Multiply that by the 17 years we ahve been in the house and that 34 FAT super-size envelopes to keep in an abnoxiously heavy tote in the basement.
I have spiral notbook for brainstorming too, I LOVE doing that. When it’s full I go through it page by page, rip out and scan the good stuff and toss the rest to be recycled.
I also have inspiration binders. (Bad me) One for gardens and house decors I love, one for cooking, and one for really good graphic design layouts (I pick of brochures, cards and ads and file them here). When it’s time to get inspired in one of those areas, I pull out the overflowing binder sit cross legged on the floor and look through it. Gets the creative juices flowing way faster than when I search the net. As long as I keep it to one binder each, I think I’m doing okay…. It used to be I’d keep to WHOLE MAGAZINE for the one idea!
creative me recently posted..Tough Measures
My husband & I are both self-employed (19 yrs worth of it) and we have to keep lots of receipts and stuff for taxes. You are only required to keep the 7 most recent years in case of audit, but I keep 10 years because I’m always the over-prepared person. I keep the huge envelopes of receipts in a big plastic Rubbermaid tub & the tax returns in my file cabinet. You are now allowed to keep digital versions of your receipts, so I have 2010-11 scanned into my computer and backed up as well and got rid of the paper versions, except the tax returns. It’s always the heaviest box when we move & I hate dealing with it, but to go back & scan 6 (or 10 being an over-achiever) more years of receipts is just more than I have time/patience to deal with. As much as my aspiring minimalist self would love to be rid of the box, my sanity is worth more in this case than giving up the weight of the box.
Hi Creative and Kathy,
Patrick and I changed the nature of our businesses largely because of taxes and paperwork. We used to sell wholesale to retail on ebay. We also used to design jewelry and sell it retail/wholesale, along with a cd which was retail/wholesale and a variety of other products like air purifiers, etc.
Now this isn’t something everyone could or would want to do, but I hated doing the paperwork for taxes. I didn’t care about paying the taxes, I just couldn’t handle all those little receipts and tallied up lists and like you both mentioned, the big stacks of paperwork to keep every year.
We decided that it bothered us enough that we changed the nature of our business. We now only sell the music as an mp3 (no physical cd’s) so paypal tracks all of our receipts for us. We also do affiliate programs (on our websites, not here at the packrat), advertising, and the pdf book 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp here.
About half of what’s in my accordion file is tax related, and I have a mega-duty accordion, not an emaciated little thing. I’ll take pictures and talk about it in a post at some point.
Papers are the bane of my existence. I cannot seem to get on top of them. But they are also low on my priority list right now, so the piles still exist. One day I will get them and I will be sure to come back to your ideas here!
Bernice
Living the Balanced Life recently posted..Some things are NON-negotiable
Hey Bernice,
You’ve got a rock-solid grasp on where your paper conundrum is at. That’s awesome. When I was minimizing my life there were many things like that. I gave up recycling for several years because I just couldn’t deal with it right then. Sometimes things have to be put on a back burner for later. I do recommend at least keeping your papers in one area of the home. It makes it easier. :)
ah, paper clutter….. my nemesis. As you know, a few months back I purged a ton of paper. I have had a few purges since then and I am getting ready to purge a ton of paper at the office. I have recently come to the conclusion that we need a shredder. We can shred them at work, but someone else actually does the actual shredding so it makes me a little uncomfortable. Confession: all those papers we purged months ago before the move are still sitting in a sealed box in our trunk because I can;t figure out how to get rid of it all and there is sensitive info on much of it. Of course, if I could remember to cut the paper up into bits as it comes into the house, we could just use scissors.
As for the work papers, I did a big purge in August and I am in need of another purge. I would like to change the way I work, because both my teaching and research methods generate a lot of paper. I have notebooks and stuff all over the place. I have one notebook for each class, committee, research project, etc…. It is too much. I think I may be switching to one research notebook and one “semester” notebook to hold all of my current ideas – work and personal. I could also cut down on a bunch of paper if I could learn to lecture from my computer only. It will take time.
As for home and personal inspiration, I have multiple notebooks floating around. I used to have huge files for inspiration pages. I use an online pinboard now, so that is more under control. I am a magazine reader and article/recipe clipper (I am going to have to join a support group to stop it LOL). This is an area I really need to work on RIGHT now. I am thinking of setting a time limit on the recipes – like make it this month, decide if it makes the long term cut or toss it.
It is a process.
jaime recently posted..weekending
Jaime,
This is going to sound weird, but I found ripping up the papers by hand to be somewhat cathartic. There wasn’t much that was so sensitive I couldn’t give it straight over to the recycling center, but we did have boxes of old checks. Those boxes had been sitting there for years because they’d printed out our address wrong by one number. Take some scissors to a few of your paper pieces and see what happens Jaime. :)
p.s. What’s so sensitive you need a shredder for it? If it doesn’t have an account number on it, it can be recycled, at least those are the rules I’ve been going by?
p.p.s. Can you tell I’m trying to keep you from buying a shredder Jaime? I once felt like I needed a shredder, and I got one, and it didn’t make my life better. I spent twenty bucks, used it a few times and then donated it a year later…. Just me.
Hi Jaime
Have you tried using Microsoft One Note for your notes? You can have multiple notebooks, with multiple sections and multiple pages per section, just like having a whole host of ring binders. You can even add links to documents and Outlook if that helps.
I am moving towards having a paper-free office, and try to put all of my notes into OneNote. I find it really useful – and easy to delete things from when you’ve finished with them.
Julia
Hey Julia, I’ve never used any of these note software programs before. The only one I’m experimenting with right now is Scrivener. I bought it a few months ago when I switched to a mac, and then a blogger I follow mentioned it again as indispensable for writing ebooks. I’ve dusted it off and practiced using it again.
Thanks for sharing that Microsoft One Note works for you. I love hearing of different technologies that can truly help simplify a person’s life.
Both my husband & I are self-employed and there are a lot of receipts. They have to be kept for tax purposes, no matter how minimalist I want to be. Now they have decided that digital copies of receipts are okay so I scanned last year & I’m current on this year but it’s way to much hassle to go back for 6 more years and scan. I had to make a decision between my desire to be minimalist and my time/sanity, so the big box of business/tax related stuff has to stay. I’ll purge when the records are old enough to not be needed any more. I have scanned/shredded/purged a lot of my other paper. I still have some more to go because there just isn’t enough time in the day with 2 businesses and 3 kids. I wish I had an automatic document feeder scanner & it would speed things up, especially when I would love to scan the big binder of family history stuff, but I don’t want to buy a piece of equipment when I already have a perfectly good printer/scanner combo. I am trying to keep current on scanning paper: receipts, kids artwork/report cards, etc then I back it up so that it’s always safe.
Hey Kathy,
I have to say I haven’t embraced the art of scanning. I did have a top-notch scanner for many years but I did very little with it. I found my laziness vs. scanning documents made me feel I didn’t need them after all. I used my unwillingness to scan as a motivator to declutter. :) So you’re light years ahead of me with your scanning.
p.s. I wouldn’t scan 6 years back either. Jeez that’s a lot of time! It almost makes it where you don’t want to get another sale if it’s going to require another receipt to be stored. :)
My receipts aren’t so much sales as they are expenses. For my husband’s business, it is service-based (horse training) so all I need is my bank statement to prove income. But oh the expenses: fuel, repairs, horse/cow feed, travel (meals, motels, etc) office supplies, etc. And then I’m a self-employed photographer, so I have basically the same situation. It’s a headache. I am trying to get where I do small things that aren’t deductible by cash so all I have to deal with is a weekly ATM withdrawal & I don’t need that receipt.
You’re service based, which we’ve done too. For me a service based business was the easiest on accounting, but the addition of products really helped the income stream of our businesses.
When we switched to service/products we realized how much more accounting there is whenever an inventory is involved. That’s why we switched to digital products only.
It sounds like a funny way to run a business, but we recognized that our accounting abilities are only average, and that’s why we downsized to an online digital product model. For us it is comfortable and it lets us keep a minimum of papers. We have one letter size manilla envelope a year for tax stuff and that’s more than enough. :) I would rather be a smaller business than deal with the headache of an accountant.
Great post! I too have a single accordian file. When I was a teenager I moved around a lot and kept everything – I had about 6 shoeboxes filled with letters from high school, notes, newspaper clippings, cartoons, important papers and everything I thought I “needed.” Only, when I actually DID need something – car registration, proof of birth, etc – I could never find it amongst the crap. It took me a few years also, but I eventually got rid of most of it.
I thought having it there was comforting. But you are right… as soon as you get rid of it, you realise how much it was weighing on you, and the space it takes up is far more valuable.
Now I have the one file, with sections for medical information, car information, SCUBA certifications, etc. All the important stuff. There is one small section at the back I keep a few sentimental photos and such. And I dont bother keeping manuals to things cos by now everything is online if you ever really need it, which I never have!
Great article as always Tanja. :)
Hey Mia,
You sound like a poster girl for minimalist papers! You didn’t start with much though, 6 shoe boxes isn’t too heavy a load at all. :) It’s awesome you were able to downsize it to the important stuff…. and those sentimental photos in the back are important stuff for sure. :)
Hah!
That book is full of a bunch of junk Andrew, and I loved putting every word in there. :)
Hi Tanja, thanks so much for your post! :) I’m gonna tackle (attack, rather) the boxes of paper some time in the near future. Right now my paper consists of: five boxes of paper/exercise books/folders; one smaller box of photos and two shelves of books and folders (not to mention other music books to be addressed after decluttering everything else). I’ll be glad to lighten the weight. Your post has given me confidence to know that most of it is probably junk. I will let you know how I get on!
On a cherrier note, I can actually sense that my room is more spacious having gotten rid of various clothes and other miscellaneous items from it. I’m still in the process of uncluttering and still have tubs in my room of stuff to sell/donate/sort thru but I’ve started and I’m on my way!! Thanks for your help and inspiration Tanja and Patrick.
Hey Olivia,
I’m so glad you’ve been inspired to work through some of that paper. You’ll feel amazingly light when you start shrinking the paper monster down. :) How awesome that you’re starting to feel the spaciousness in your home. That feeling is incredible!
Hi Tania
A great blog, with some great ideas. I try not to bring paper into the house, and people are often surprised when I refuse leaflets and perhaps tap their website address into my mobile phone instead. They’re quite understanding once I’ve explained, though.
I have devised a flow chart that I use when clearing out papers, which I shared in my recent blog on this same topic. I’ve put the link here, but don’t want you to think I’m just being self-promoting, so if you don’t want to publish it, that’s fine!
http://www.sustainablelivingexpert.co.uk/home/2011/08/towards-a-paper-free-office/
Julia
I’m always happy to share a little traffic love. Everyone, go check out Julia’s paper flow chart. That’s what I’m going to do right now. ;)
This is off topic, but I just had to comment on the photo at the top of your site. I used to dearly love hanging clothes outside before I moved to the city. Two of my uncles (both now deceased) build a custom clothesline for me that would spin around. It was umbrella-shaped, but much stronger that what you could buy online. I miss that clothesline so much. Thank you for posting the picture. It brought back such wonderful memories.
Hey Lorna,
Thank you! Patrick thought it was too big, but I thought the clothesline shot was perfect as a symbol for the packrat. I love your story of the custom-built clothesline your uncles built. Those are the juicy memories. I can feel the simplicity coming through your words and memory. I love using Cora’s clothesline and I feel rather blessed. It’s a ridiculous thing to be so excited about and maybe some day I’ll articulate the meaning of clotheslines for myself. :) In the meantime I’m going to ride on the beautiful story you shared here.
p.s. I put the same picture in my email newsletter and then I liked it so much I wanted to share the picture here too. :)
I used to print out all my pdf file books until I realised that the point of pdf fils is that you can read them on your ipad, not waste paper and not have a load of paper cluttr. They all got recycled.
Hi Tasmanian,
That’s awesome. I haven’t posted on it, but I used to print out papers constantly to. I started to dislike my lack of discretion at printing so much that I got rid of my printer. Good for you on recycling them! ipads are good. ;)
I must confess to having a file box of current papers. A mementos box of love letters and cards from my wife. I also have three file drawers and several boxes of old records, but these are business records that the government says I have to keep for at least 5 years. That’s my excuse. One file drawer is old customer records that I don’t HAVE to keep but it gives me comfort once in a while to go through it and peruse the many hundreds of people for whom I’ve designed and created custom furniture pieces. It helps me feel as though I’ve accomplished something with my life.
The Current Records box gets a going through once a year and old stuff that is no longer needed (bank statements, utility bills, etc.) get removed and re-purposed.
I’m a back-side scribbler. When we get papers that are blank on the back I tear them in half and put them in a rack for use as scratch paper for scribbling notes and such. Once the paper has been used up on both sides it gets vetted and processed for recycling, fireplace fodder or compost.
Like you I have cancelled nearly all the magazine subscriptions (I get free subs to the ones I for which write). If I re-subscribe to any, I’ll get them as an annual collections on CD. Friends and relatives give us copies of magazines they read (their solution to magazine clutter) and since we are often the end of the line, we’ll cut out articles that are especially interesting as a project we want to do or as information I can use in my writing and file those. The rest goes into the Mixed Paper bin for recycling. Glossy paper does not burn well in the fireplace or compost because of the clay based glaze used to make it glossy.
The one good thing about the harsh economy and rising postage rates is that the influx of junk mail has slowed. That used to be the bulk of our paper disposal procedure.
Thanks for the good advice, Tanja.
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You’re the perfect one to ask about this Allan. What did you do with the magazines you appear in? Did you save a physical copy of each one? Is that really important for a writer?
I used to keep everything where my or Patrick’s name appeared in print. Then I got tired of it and dumped it all. Do you have a good solution for how to keep up a writing portfolio without keeping all that stuff?
p.s. You’re doing awesome with your papers, you knew what was in each box. You sound rather organized about it. :)
Organized or Obsessive-Compulssive, hard to say which. One of the things I learned from you was that when I look at a box and say, “I wonder what’s in there.” I could probably dispose of it and not miss it at all.
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Ah, a little ocd? Never! Not in this neck of the woods. ;)
I used to have boxes of them. But once family stopped asking to see them they became a burden. The solution for me was a magical device called a scanner and Microsoft Office’s Document manager.
Unfortunately a lightning strike made them all go “poof”. That’s when I decided looking backward was pointless (and bought an external back-up drive)
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Ah, yes, I did break down and get an external back-up drive recently, I’ve just tried not to get too attached to anything on it.
I have had my computer go poof several times so I haven’t trusted any technological back up management system. I guess instead I just downsized it all through accidental or on-purpose poofs.
We had a scanner but all I ever did was attempt to scan my jewelry on it before breaking down and using a camera. I decluttered the scanner at some point after not using it for years. Your magical scanner technology sounds pretty cool though. :)
So do you just keep an online writer’s portfolio now like what’s on your about page?
I scan all my papers. Granted, I’m just converting from paper clutter to digital clutter, but the latter doesn’t take up nearly as much space. And since my scanning software OCRs, and I try to file in useful categories, it is much easier to search digitally. And if I need a hard copy later (say a receipt to return something) I can just print it out when I need to.
Paper clutter seems the most de-cluttering resistant type of clutter yet.
I spent the day tossing old financial papers (why I thought cable bills from an apartment I lived in 5 years ago needed to be stored is beyond me) and sorting and scanning the ephemera my fantasy self imagines making into a scrap book of every trip I’ve ever taken. (Umm, 14 White House postcards from that trip to DC in 1996?) I day dream about having just one accordian file, but I’m lots of weekend afternoons sorting before I get there.
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I still treasure my old papers. In fact, I have a small room where I put all my used papers. I have this attitude that I need to keep everything I own even a single paper.
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