I’m a Paper Pile Hater. I’ll admit it.
Paper piles contain so many decisions to be made, and those decisions overwhelm me on their own, so a pile full of overwhelming decisions makes me hold my eyes just so until the blurring lets me not see the mess.
But I’ve learned a thing or two (or seventy-eleven) about piles in general over the past six years of my deslobification process.
Thing One: Once I start tackling piles, they’re never rarely as bad as I imagine them to be.
Thing Two: Smaller piles stress me out less than bigger ones.
Thing Three: My made-up rule to Do the Easy Stuff First applies to every single clutter situation and works every single time.
So how does this work in a paper pile?
Doing the Easy Stuff First means looking for trash first. When paper is in a pile, I see the pile. I see the volume and the mass and I’m overwhelmed by the pile itself.
I think every single part of that pile is going to stress me out. If the first paper I pull off the top is one of those should-I-keep-this-probably-not-but-what-if-I-should pieces, then I want to turn away and ignore the mess, convincing myself it’s better to have piles than not have a piece of paper that could potentially save our lives.
Or keep us out of jail.
But if I give myself permission to do what’s easy, I look through the pile and don’t even worry about anything except trash.
Trash. Empty envelopes or extra blank pages that came with the oh-so-important papers.
Like these empty envelopes that were part of a pile of the random non-online bills we get. That was a crazy-important pile of stress. But even though I was confident everything in that pile was life-or-death-necessary, I looked for trash in it anyway. And since I found trash, the pile shrank and so did my stress.
And usually, when I let myself look for the obvious trash in an attempt to shrink the pile(s), I find obvious-but-not-so-obvious trash as well and it shrinks even more. Things like junk mail or out-of-date school notes.
Have you shrunk your piles lately?
Other paper-related posts: How to Reduce Paper Clutter
How to Reduce Paper Clutter: the Podcast
How to Declutter Birthday Cards
P.S. I had to google shrink, shrank, shrunk. Here’s hoping I used them correctly!
--Nony
Hah! Yes! I tend to grab the whole darn thing and dump it onto the kitchen table so I can’t get distracted at my desk. I have, generally, three piles: trash, filing and “to be dealt with” (which basically just means I can trash or file it!)
To me budgeting and Evernote eliminated the paper piles. The budget means I can pay the bills right away as they come in, then I snap a pic on my phone and load it to Evernote… And the bill is in the trash the day it came in the mail. Now there is only the children’s art piles and the husbands random notes and project plans…
UGH! Paper piles are my kryptonite! I never know what to do with them, and I have a husband that will randomly ask me for something from 6 months ago and so I need to be able to find it. And I’m sure it is somewhere on the pile of papers that is my desk. Someday…
No piles anymore. There is no bill that can’t be paid online. You even send a check to a friend. Just out their info in. Mail is thus brought in and dealt with. Bills paid. Everything thrown out except bill itself which is thrown into a box abd shredded at the end of tax season for that year. Becoming fanatical about paper. Was life changing.
I used to have an entire room dedicated to paper piles. Plus the big pile (or piles) by the front door. And on the kitchen table. They were my nemesis.
I started applying your container rule to paper, and it helped, a lot.
The problem with most trays to hold paper, is that you can ‘pile’ it sky high. And then it falls, and you have more piles of paper. Please tell me I’m not the only one this has happened to.
Enter in magazine holders. One by the door, about three in the office. Once they’re full, it forces me to spend five minutes going through and, as a minimum, throw out the obvious stuff: empty envelopes, coupons to fast food we never use, etc. at least if it’s an important paper that’s not where it’s ‘supposed’ to be, I know it’s likely in one of the magazine holders.
I hate the junk from insurance companies. Whenever it comes there is like 1 page that actually needs to be looked at (like the explanation of benefits) and 5 pages telling you that you can get it in another language and other randomness. Now when they come in I trash all the others and keep just the one page. Wow- 80% less by my one action! If it only it will self-file…
Perfect timing! I decided today is the day I tackle my paper piles in the entryway and dining room – the area where all the papers go to be dealt with later. I want to set up a workable system to keep up with it. I have just finished reorganizing my kitchen and my success at having clear space to work on, orderly storage space and the ability to maintain it EASILY is spurring me to tackle my most dreaded problem – paper piles.
I am currently in my spring-cleaning-mood (and running out of energy now…), the clutter in this house is annoying me. I am not good at throwing things away (e.g. the old blurry photos from a trip no one can actually remember. But those are memories! Well, I’ll deal with that later, I have a big box for it). But I tackled the last two boxes from our last house-move. It was A LOT of paper I was too lazy to file a couple of years ago! I needed two days to look through it (not mentioning my neighour coming over for a coffee, my hour-long chat on the phone and so on…). I would have loved to throw everything away but unfortunately there is the law that you have to keep certain papers. Now I have a huge box of paper for the bin, four little boxes of paper I have to keep and found our missing car documents.
But since two or three years I avoid large piles because of the stress they are causing; plus I am self-employed now. I have a filing system which works perfectly well: Things I have to do are in my To-Do, things I already dealt with are in my filing basket to be stored away – I do that every month or so.
Ugh. Paper is my nemesis. I guess I needed you to point out the obvious here. Tossing the trash first would make the rest of it more manageable. Or at least smaller.
OMW! Thank you Nony! I so needed to read this today…my poor table has been overrun with paper files (not to mention the incredible growing stack from my Kindegartener)!
Over the weekend I had had very good intentions to start sorting, but got completely over-whelmed at the sight of it, and never touched it! I just need to start with the easy stuff…..Thank you for the encouragement today…..it was so needed!
I open the mail next to the recycle bin and ditch all the junk mail and excess envelopes the first time I touch it.
I finally decluttered our “breakfast cereals & lots of other things” cupboard yesterday. It wasn’t as hard as expected. Buuuut, that means I have decluttering energy left (which I’m kind of perversely annoyed about) and I just KNOW I need to tackle the children’s desk area next. Duh-duh-duuuuhhhh! It is awful – on top, above and below. And big. I’m re-scaring myself typing this. BUT…your encouraging post makes me think I just might be able to tackle it. Trash first. Things with a place next. Even if I can’t handle the remainder, the pile will be smaller. Breathe. This will be okay…
I was able to get a pretty good handle on my paperwork about 2 years ago by thinking hard about how long I really needed to keep most of my papers. Items like old bills, warranties and instructions for minor purchases, old pay stubs, etc. By clearing out old, unneeded papers from my files I found I had room to easily file the new ones I needed to keep which helped me combat my disinclination to file what I did need to keep.
I receive most of my bills online now and move them to a “paid bills” folder in my email when I schedule the payment from my bank. I also put the email from my bank informing me that the payment was sent in the same folder. Once a month I go in there and delete everything older than 3 months. Any paper bills go in my Pending folder until the next month’s statement comes in. Once I see the company has credited the last month’s payment I shred the old bill. If a question comes up in the future I can go into my on line banking records and print copies of the checks proving payment.
I remember helping to clear out an elderly relative’s home after she passed away and finding boxes of paid electric bills going back 50+ years. Now that I’m getting older I want to be sure everything is in order if one of my daughters should need to step in and take of things for me.
I suggest thinking about whether you will realistically ever need the information in a piece of paper ever again, how long a time period you might need it and if you can find it elsewhere if you do. If you have a business or something else in your life that generates a lot of paper scanning the documents may lift a big burden off of your shoulders.
Just like anything else in your home, once you set up a system it needs continuing effort to keep it going. Good luck and keep plugging away!
I found my own almost perfect solution was to get one of those alphabetic desk file/sorters. They are life-changing! (And I mean specifically a sorter, not an accordion file.) Then I use your system of where would I look for it first, and then putting it where it should go right now! (And of course generously relegating obvious trash to the trash can.) What I mean is, I pick up a paper. Oh, this is something about medical…I would look for that under m first. I pick up another one and it is from the bank…Most bank stuff can be found online, but if I think I need to keep it, I might file it under B for bank. So I can go through as much or as little as I want at once, and the pile has diminished. If my file gets fat after 8 months, I pick a letter in the file and pitch stuff that has become trash. Now if I were organizing, then I would try filing…NOT! I’ve never been successful with files. But this has changed my paper clutter life. 🙂 And I can actually find things I need later.
I am so glad you ran this post again. I needed to be reminded that I can shrink paper piles also and where to begin. As I read this post I have three, yes three, piles of paper in my living room. I am going right now to start shrinking them.
Piles. Ugh!!! I may have a few that are um, Placed (shoved) into bins under the bed. And all over the kitchen table. 🤦🏽♀️ And garage?! (Literally inherited piles from my parents! And car cleanout boxes of stuff I’ll “go through later.” ) I *may* have a problem, lol!
How do you organize your tax returns?
One thing that helped me with utility bill clutter was to realize I only needed to keep the latest copy of those bills. So if I find an electric bill in the pile, I keep it in the utility bill stack. When I find a newer electric bill, the older one is now trash.
I also put a note on my phone with the phone number and account number for all the utilities. I find that extremely useful. I usually pay by phone and now I have the information at my fingertip.
I am not going to say I don’t have paper piles because of course I do. I kid myself into believing I’m great because I just am of course. Why is that?
I put all medical papers in one pile, different doctors different visits need to be sorted of course. Then I have a pile for financial statements might be two or three different types but they are all financial statements. This way you see I have no throwaways because I’ve already done that.
What I have to mention is that I have another area on one of my kitchen counters with papers sprawled, no pile just sprawling. Of course some of that is who knows.
Believe it or not as crazy as the above sounds it helps some.
“Have you shrunk your piles lately?” hahaha! I don’t know if you meant this to be funny, but it surely hit me funny this morning!
Your advice is always helpful and encouraging, and the laughs are very welcome, too! Since finding you and the Take Your House Back course I now have zero paper piles, and very few files to deal with. No more paper stress. Thank you, Dana!