The Clutter Fairy Weekly #247
Paper Problems: Pile-purging Practices for Productivity and Peace
It’s time once again to parse the particular problems that paper poses. We’ll examine the habits and beliefs that lead to heaps, folders, boxes, bags, bins, and drawers full of bills, receipts, records, recipes, clippings, statements, magazines, and more. In episode #247 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, discusses the reasons we keep more paper than we need and offers pointers for purging your personal paper piles.
Links mentioned in this episode
- Previous episodes about our “bigger buckets” philosophy of paper management:
- Buy Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism
Content in this episode is based on the results of audience surveys.
Some content in this episode is based on results of a survey of our audience.
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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.
Plan a Paper Project
This week’s assignment is to apply principles we’ve talked about in this week’s show to plan a project to address your worst paper challenge:
- Reflect on the category of paper that you identified in this week’s survey as your most challenging type—your paper nemesis. If you haven’t taken the survey, answer this question: What type or category of paper clutter do you find the most challenging to sort, purge, and organize?
- Decide how much time you’re willing to spend in a single session of paper processing. How many sessions a week of that duration do you think you might be able to take on? (If you’re unsure of your capacity, start with two 10-minute sessions.)
- Schedule specific appointments with yourself this week to work on your nemesis category of paper for the period to which you’ve committed to work.
- Work through your scheduled appointments. Set a timer to let you know when you’ve met your time objective. At the end of each session, notice whether you still feel able to keep going or whether you’ve exhausted your stamina.
- MORE TK Ed to add one more bullet point here.
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
Words can’t express how happy I am to have found your podcast. I’ve binged the last year’s worth and I have more to go. I listen to the program with headphones on, sometimes while I’m knitting or even decluttering a drawer or two. I’ve made many trips to the donation centers (and only came home with one or two small plant pots since I’m a gardener). Love the show. Looking forward to handling my crazy paper mess. I teach horticulture and have too many books, too many handouts for classes and more. That’s the area I’m starting on before garden season arrives in the chicago area. Thanks to you and Ed for all the inspiration!
I also keep old insurance policies. It is probably different in Australia. I like to check the insured value of my vehicle and recently negotiated a huge discount as the value of my car is obviously less year on year but the premiums were proportionately too much more. Also when I considered changing insurers I had to be able to provide evidence of my last 5 years no claim bonus status. I have been scanning them for years but always keep a couple of paper copies.