PROGRAM NOTES

If you’ve made progress clearing paper piles in March, then cleaning up your home office is a great next step, because it’s not just the papers in the office that are out of control—the supplies and the equipment are, too! Removing the paper from the desktop and other surfaces uncovers what’s buried beneath. Now it’s time to deal with the rest of the office.

Here’s a strategy for putting your office area in order.

1. Collect the materials you’ll need to get started: a few sorting boxes, plus a trash can—and a recycling bin if you want. Mark the sorting boxes as follows: Relocate, Trash, File, Office Supplies & Equipment.
2. Sort everything in the room into one of those bins. Clear off the desk, the floor, clear out the bookcases and any chairs. You want to uncover every surface and empty every cabinet or shelf in the office.
   1. Relocate—This is where you put things that ended up in the office but are not really office items, like dishes, newspapers, or things from the bathroom. When sorting is done, carry these things out of the office to the appropriate room.
   2. Trash—This box is for the obvious things. When sorting is done, it goes out to the trash!
   3. File—Use this box for all the paper you need to keep. Hopefully, you’ve already filed everything from the previous project, but you may find some hidden items as you go through the office. If you do, file them away in your newly organized files.
   4. Office Supplies & Equipment—For your stapler, ruler, Post-Its, and paper clips. Don’t keep multiples! The goal is to pare down the supplies to a usable amount and stop trying to make space for supplies you’ll never use up. Plenty of teachers in the world need supplies, so donate them instead!

The home office: productive workspace or no man’s land?
3. Move the furniture around now. Once you’ve cleared off the surfaces, you can rearrange the furniture again so it’s more functional. Things were probably slowly added to the room over time, and the arrangement maybe be a hodge-podge. Now’s the time to work out the room layout that best supports your work:
   1. The phone should be within reach when you sit at the desk.
   2. Make sure you can reach your active files from the chair as well. That means using one or two desk file drawers. Other files can be behind you or to the side in a filing cabinet or armoire.
   3. Reference materials can be in bookcases across the room.
   4. Excess office supplies can be in a closet or armoire, in bins on bookcases, or in cabinets.
4. Re-dress the desk with only the things that you use almost every day. The rest can go in drawers or on shelves, etc.
   1. Only a few supplies need to be on the desktop. The rest can be in the desk drawers or in bins on shelves or cabinets. Use this guide—do you need it every day? If yes, better put it on top. If it’s not used every day, then put it away.
   2. Same rule with equipment—plug in the electric pencil sharpener, adding machine, and CD player somewhere away from the desk. For as little as they get used, they don’t need a space on the desk, and that gets some of the cords out from under your feet.
   3. Feel free to put out some décor items, but don’t crowd the desktop with them. You need that space to work, and a clear space is the answer. Place decorations on other surfaces within sight instead of on the desk.

The Clutter Fairy gets lots of questions about shredding. Where can I get it done? How much does it cost? Do I know of a free shred day? It used to be that the only people who cared about shredding documents were large law firms. Now everyone wants to destroy sensitive paperwork as protection against identity theft—a new security threat that comes with living in the Information Age. A shredding industry has grown up to handle the needs of big businesses, but how are ordinary consumers and small businesses supposed to tackle a big paper pile problem?

NAPO Houston (of which The Clutter Fairy is a member) has a corporate partner in the shredding business: Southern Shred. Like other shredding companies, Southern Shred offers pickup or on‑site destruction of secure documents either on a regular schedule or as a one-time service. But Southern Shred also looks out for customers who don’t need that level of service by offering convenient satellite drop‑off sites.

These are secure drop boxes at locations all around the Greater Houston area where you can take your documents and deposit them in a locked container for a fee. The going rate was $1 per pound at all the locations we surveyed. When the drop box is full, Southern Shred sends one of its state-of-the-art mobile shredding trucks to the location to shred the contents.

The satellite locations provide a perfect solution when you’re purging the filing cabinet, emptying a lifetime of records from a parent’s home, or getting ready for a move. Instead of feeding those stacks of paper into your home shredder five or six at a time until the motor burns out, take them to a Southern Shred drop‑off location, pay a modest fee, and voilà!—your problem is solved quickly and securely. I plan to recommend this convenient, valuable service to all my home-office organizing clients.

Southern Shred operates 20 satellite locations around town. The Google map of Southern Shred drop‑off sites is complete with business names, addresses, and phone numbers. Take advantage of this great service, and make your nagging pile of sensitive documents go away today!

Kim Jordan, host of The Ask Kim Jordan Show, interviews Gayle Goddard about organizing products for the closet and home office. Check out the Pods from Neat Containers, a great way to store shoes, purses, and accessories in the closet. We also look at an expanding file container that’s perfect for storing your tax paperwork.

This introductory classroom session will give you the tips and tricks you need to move past being overwhelmed and start clearing out your “stuff.” You will learn the secrets of sorting mail, clearing and organizing your desk, cleaning out your closets, and divesting yourself of unused, unneeded items. You’ll leave the workshop with loads of organizing ideas to transform any space into a productive, pleasant, clutter-free zone.

NiaMoves Studio 1
508 Pecore St.
Houston, Texas 77009
713-864-4260
Price: $45 early registration (by January 31).
$55 late registration or at the door.

Register online now.

We encourage you to register in advance so we can plan materials and refreshments for you. For more information, send e-mail to The Clutter Fairy or call 713‑816‑9505.

Many people now use computer database applications to track the results of their genealogical research. But the hobby still generates vast amounts of paper to physically organize. Here are a couple of strategies to build a system that can expand as your collection grows.

Three-ring Binders

Many people new to genealogical research begin organizing their material with a binder for each of their grandparents. Here’s the basic idea:

• Set up a three-ring binder for the surname of each grandparent.
• In each surname binder, sort materials by first name.
• Within each first name, arrange your materials as you like; for example, chronologically or following some other established order.
• Use archival-safe sheet protectors for your materials.
• Oversized or three-dimensional records (diaries, bibles, framed certificates) should be stored in archival-safe, acid-free boxes or file folders.
• For easy reference, place family group sheets at the front of the binder.
• Set up a “Miscellaneous Surnames” binder for new names you discover in the course of your research. Once the volume of material warrants it, designate a separate binder for that surname.

Keep these points in mind when using binders:

• Never take a surname binder to the library. Losing a binder and its contents would be devastating. (Note: Some libraries and genealogical research sites also place restrictions on what you may bring with you into the facility. We recommend that you check the rules before your research trip.)
• Instead, make a separate binder for research trips, with photocopies of pedigree charts and family group sheets.
• If you want specific records to go on a research trip, make copies. Originals stay home!
• Oversized records don’t work well in binders. If you decide to use on a binder system, you’ll need a place for these larger items, such as a dedicated storage box or file drawer.

Color-coded Hanging File Folders

Although many researchers start with binders, you may find that a color-coded file folder system works better once the volume of information outgrows your binder space. Here’s an outline of such a system:

• Start with 16 hanging file folders—four each in four different colors.
• The folders themselves and/or the label tabs may be colored.
• Each color represents one grandparent’s surname. For example, information about your paternal grandfather and his ancestors might go in a set of blue folders—one for each of his grandparents’ surnames. The four surnames of your paternal grandmother’s grandparents might go in red folders, and so on.
• In each surname folder, sort materials by first name.
• Within each first name, sort materials according to your system of choice.

Keep these points in mind when using color-coded hanging file folders:

• Hanging file folders come in a variety of expandable types, including one- to four-inch box-bottom folders that can accommodate most materials, including oversized and three-dimensional items.
• Some maps or very large materials require too much folding to fit in hanging files. Look for supplemental storage containers, such as archival-safe boxes or map tubes.

Resources

Books

Organizing Your Family History Search: Efficient & Effective Ways to Gather and Protect Your Genealogical Research

Sharon Carmack

Managing a Genealogical Project (Updated Edition)

William Dollarhide

Organizing and Preserving Your Heirloom Documents

Katherine Scott Sturdevant

Beyond Pedigrees: Organizing and Enhancing Your Work

Beverly Delong Whitaker

30 Seconds: A Guide to Organizing Your Genealogy Files

Robert Langman and Jimmy B. Parker

Software applications for organizing your research

Family Tree Maker

RootsMagic

Clooz

Support and networking

Houston Genealogical Forum

Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research, Houston, Texas

Clayton Library Friends

RootsMagic user groups

Useful products

Acid-free Sheet Protectors

The Scrap Rack

Does tax season sneak up on you every year? One day you’re toasting the New Year and thinking you have all the time in the world to get ready for April 15. Before you know it, you’re scrambling to get your papers together because you’ve almost missed the filing deadline. It’s never fun, is it? I speak from experience, by the way. I’m a CPA, but I hate doing taxes as much as anyone else!

My theory about why people put off tax preparation year after year is simple. You realize that tax-related papers are scattered throughout your home office—and maybe in piles on the coffee table, on the kitchen counter, or in the entryway. Gathering and sorting those papers seems unpleasant in every way, so you put off the ugly task until “later.” After all, on January 1, you still have 3-1/2 months until the deadline to file your return. Time flies until right about now, when you suddenly realize that you and your tax preparer only have two weeks to get your return together!

Turning tax preparation into a fire drill only makes the inevitable task more unpleasant. It’s too late to avoid that part of the problem for this year, I’m sorry to say, but even this late in the game, there are things you can do to streamline the work that’s facing you. I offer the following quick sorting process to find the paperwork you need, ignore the stuff you don’t, and assemble your vital tax paperwork in time for the IRS deadline.

The Clutter Fairy’s Last-Minute Tax Season Fire Drill

First, get out last year’s tax return, and look at the types of income and deductions that actually ended up on the tax return. Most people’s returns look similar from year to year, so your last return is a good guide in preparing for this year.

Your tax preparer only cares about paperwork that supports numbers that are going to be on the tax return. If a document isn’t related to income you earned or deductions you can claim, it doesn’t matter to the tax preparer.

For example, many people believe they need to consider all their medical receipts. But do you really? Although medical expenses are deductible, very few taxpayers meet the conditions to take a deduction. Unreimbursed medical expenses are only deductible if they exceed 7-1/2 percent of your Adjusted Gross Income. So if your AGI is $50,000, the first $3,750 of your medical expenses ($50,000 x 0.075) effectively doesn’t count. Before you spend time gathering your doctors’ bills and prescription receipts, make a comparison using ballpark figures for income and medical expenses. If you determine that you didn’t spend anywhere near that much out of pocket, you don’t need to worry about medical receipts.

Simpler yet, if you take the standard deduction every year, there isn’t much paper at all that needs to go to the tax preparer, only documents related to money you earned—bank statements, investment statements, W-2s, any type of 1099s—and not much else.

If you have a business that gets reported on a Schedule C, then everything related to the business income and expenses needs to be gathered up. But it should be easy to separate business and personal expenses. Keep the business ones, skip the personal ones.

So, are you ready to start sorting? It’s easy!

1. Collect the materials you’ll need to get started: a few sorting boxes, plus a trash can—and a recycling bin and a shredder, if you want. Mark the sorting boxes as follows:
   1. Personal Income and Bank Stmts—For any earnings statements, W-2s, 1099s, etc. Include all your bank statements in here as well.
   2. Personal Deductions—For any paperwork that supports deductions on your return. If you use the standard deduction each year, you don’t even need this box!
   3. Business Income and Bank Stmts—If you have a business, this is for anything that supports income earned by the business. Include business bank statements here.
   4. Business Deductions—For any expenses related to your business.
   5. Non-Tax Keep—Put anything in here that you want to keep that doesn’t have anything to do with taxes. This stuff becomes an organizing project for another day.
2. Get one big box or bin and gather all the paper you have lying around everywhere. Pick up every pile you suspect might have tax support paperwork buried in it, and put it in the bin. Clear off all the places you have been stashing paper, and put the piles in the bin.
3. Time to sort! Work your way through the contents of the gathering bin and decide how to handle each item:
   1. If you’re ready to discard it, it goes in the trash, recycling bin, or shredder.
   2. If it’s not tax-related but you want to keep it, into the Non-Tax Keep box it goes.
   3. Does it support your tax return? Then sort it into the correct tax-related box.
4. Once you’ve emptied the gathering bin, you are ready to submit your info to the tax preparer. If you want to save some money, consider summarizing the data before you turn it over to your tax professional. It should be a breeze to add up the numbers on a spreadsheet now that you’ve got all the pieces sorted. Anything you do yourself is one less thing the tax preparer will have to charge you to do.

If you still haven’t learned your lesson to get ready for tax season earlier, then save this e-mail so at least you’ll be better prepared for the fire drill next year!

This introductory classroom session will give you the tips and tricks you need to move past being overwhelmed and start clearing out your “stuff.” You will learn the secrets of sorting mail, clearing and organizing your desk, cleaning out your closets, and divesting yourself of unused, unneeded items. You’ll leave the workshop with loads of organizing ideas to transform any space into a productive, pleasant, clutter-free zone.

NiaMoves Studio 1
508 Pecore St.
Houston, Texas 77009
713-864-4260