File papers that need filing, throw away others

Heeft een mooie stapel papieren. Zou fijn zijn dat eens uit te mesten…

I haven’t filed anything properly for about 2 years now, so it is a pretty big task – And this week I finally got around to starting it! Moved all my stuff to in front of the TV as to not be completely bored. Still a bit further to go, (well a lot really) but it was a start. Now I just need to file / toss things as they come.

I spent a couple of hours working my way through a large filing cabinet, throwing away old stuff, labelling what I needed to keep; just a beginning, there’s a long way to go, but it feels good!

I so envy you here, you who can organize your files and papers in hours or days, since I put off organizing my files and papers for years because, although I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, as well as a just recently discovered lifelong immune disorder, I kept pushing myself to be “normal” and that included working a full-time job.

I used up every bit of energy I had and energy I didn’t have trying to work the job, which became harder and harder for me, but I had not worked for three months prior, and I felt like the minute I started not to feel so bad, I should push myself back into the world of the healthy.

All I did was make myself much, much sicker, and during a period of about four to five years, and most recently about the last year between medical paperwork, disability paperwork, etc., which comes every other day it seems, my “I feel like a corpse” exhaustion, severe pain, medical appointments and life circumstances, I threw mail, papers, etc., helter skelter into boxes and bags and various files, and I have been trying to do a little each day, but it’s so hard.

My brain doesn’t work the same, and I don’t know whether I should file papers within a folder by type of document (letter, form I complete, form a doctor completes, statements, etc.), by date only not caring what kind of document it is, or alphabetically by … well, I don’t know.

If anyone happens to read this and has ideas, I would love to hear them. Really, I used to know this stuff, but it’s like everything I used to know fell out of my brain.

I am sure that by minimizing clutter and excess possessions (which is my overall plan), I can improve my health. That is my goal, because I am getting worse and I don’t want to get worse.

All I really treasure is my dog and everything else doesn’t really matter.

Kat

I shredded what needed to be shredded. I just need to file the rest. There’s a massive pile in the dining room.

...of papers is ready to be recycled. I hadn’t planned to sort through papers this morning, but when our home alarm started beeping with an error code at 1:30AM and required the alarm to be reset every 30 minutes, I was wide awake and decided to look through unsorted papers for the alarm manual and contact information and just assumed the papers had not been filed. My husband found the needed manual in the filing cabinet right away, but I continued to sort papers while he was getting help with the alarm.

Guess I need to spend a little time each week sorting and filing papers until everything has been sorted.

once you start doing this, it goes really fast and within an hour or two, you feel very accomplished and organized. Dont put it off any longer. Do it today !!

...filing yet, but threw several bags of papers away this week.

I was holding on to things that were once important to me, like all the dog rescue handouts and paperwork even though I haven’t been involved with that group for over four years.

I also got rid of the dogs medical records. Our dogs have all passed away, but still had 19 years of records neatly filed and was taking almost a drawer of the filing cabinet. This was more difficult to let go of, but I know it was no longer needed.

My collection of saved papers also included a couple boxes of recipes that I had saved over the years. Many of the recipes are no longer things I would cook/bake because my tastes and skills have changed and have already gotten rid of most of my old cookbooks that included similar types of food. I looked through the boxes and tossed almost all of it. Most of the recipes that sounded interesting were from Gourmet & Sunset magazines and only took a few minutes to find them in the archives on their websites and able to save them on those sites. I still a box of current recipes that I need to organize my favorites and recycle the rest.

I would be happy to get rid of this amount of papers every week for the next month or so.

filed those two large bags of documents that were stuffed under the bed. Just need to keep on top of this by filing every day / every other day.

My paper shredder is exhausted, but everything is neatly in it’s place. I procrastinated on this goal for way to long. Now, on to the challenge of keeping up with my system and dealing with paper as it comes in.