Look Good on Paper: Control the Influx and Manage What You Keep

The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.

The First Pass

This week’s assignment is to make some small progress on your most problematic paper category:

• If you haven’t already done so in answer to our recent survey, identify the category of paper clutter that gives you the most trouble. Or just pick the paper category with the greatest volume.
• Schedule an appointment with yourself to make a first pass through a stack of paper in this category. We suggest you allow 20 to 30 minutes for this task.
• Sit down with the stack of paper, an empty container for the items you’ll keep, a pen or pencil, and some post-its. Now go through the stack and make a “keep/toss” decision about each item. At this stage, you’re only deciding whether to keep the item or to put it into the trash, the shredder, or the recycling bin. If you’re in doubt, keep the item.
• Save your “keep” items for further processing at a later time. Place them in a box or bin labeled with the date and a note about what the collection contains (for example, “March 12—medical records and personal correspondence to sort and file”).
• If you’re in the 17 percent of our audience who don’t have a problem with paper clutter, make time this week to review the paper management system you already have in place. Is your routine working well, or are there any tweaks that might make your process even better?

For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.