Reduce Paper Clutter in My Home

If you take my old bills, bank statements and documents, the mags that are kept for only one or two articles, the estate documents and various other papers of my moms, the instructions manuals for appliance that you have to keep, but never need to refer to (until ou throw it away), I have a paper mountain.

I resolve to:
scan the instruction manuals – no space needed and dump the manual itself.
scan magazine articles that I want and dump the magazines.
sort through and keep in orderly files onlh the documents that have to be kept.

I worked through my “old mail” pile the last two weekends, shredding and filing as I went. There is still plenty of loose stuff to work through (and files to purge and organize after that), but I’m much better off now than I was 2 weeks ago.

As part of trying to “refine, redefine, reorganize, and revise my goals” I’ve decided to mark this as done. I have reduced the amount and any future efforts can easily fall under getting organized or practicing flylady or one of the other similar goals.

Another couple of bins shredded. I’ve used a bit of it to make some paper, as well. Paper that can be used isn’t clutter to me. There’s so much of it still though…

This is just what was shredded, not including that which I just threw away. I have so much paper in this house. Yikes. Luckily it’s mostly all being recycled.

Another 2 shredder bins full of paper dealt with and shredded. They’ll be taken to recycling tomorrow.

Two grocery bags full of shredded paper over the past three days. (not including today)

Soon I’ll start sorting it all into categories instead of just pulling out the obvious trash.

Today is the first time I’ve really sat down with this goal in mind and started working on completing it. So far I’ve shredded a shredder bin full of paper – old bank statements, receipts, credit card offers. I’ve thrown away several bits too. Still working on it.

I made a trip to the recycle bin yesterday…got rid of a bunch of paper and some boxes. Things feel a little more under control today, with a little less paper everywhere.

I’ve gotten rid of several magazines lately. I’ve yet to gather the courage to attack the boxes full of paper that need to be sorted, trashed, and filed though.