How I did it: My big problem was controlling paperwork. I always had stacks of papers sitting on my desk waiting to be filed. I also had a bad habit of stuffing papers into file folders, unorganized. I figured, out of sight, out of mind.

What I did was I started by going through old files and piles, organizing papers, sorting them into groupings that made sense for me. It took a few weeks to get this under control, and things got REALLY messy before they got clean again.

Once I got my existing documents organized, I made a plan for how to handle future documents. Now I know that when a piece of mail comes in, I can deal with it and file it right away. I know I already have a place for it.

Lessons & tips: Figure out what your storage needs are FIRST before you run out and buy a bunch of containers. I found that a two drawer filing cabinet was really helpful for me. I got a cheap one at Big Lots.

Resources: Suze Orman offers some great tips on controlling financial clutter. Her guidelines for how long to keep different types of documents really helped me purge many of my files.

Oct 31, 11:48AM PDT | 0 comments | 1 cheer