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10 tips for dealing with catalogs, receipts, records and more
Catalogs, magazines, bank statements, bills, school assignments, calendars, newsletters, recipes, brochures, fliers, children's drawings, receipts and other papers accumulate at warp speed in our homes.
We stack them on tables or stuff them into drawers. But they just keep coming. Before you know it, everything's toppling and sprawling.
"There's so much information and people want to hang onto everything," said professional organizer Cynthia Carstens of Red Leaf Organization in Redding.
"We have so much more paper coming into our lives than we used to," said professonal organizer Karen Clem of Transformations in Redding.
Instead of making society paperless, computers have contributed to the flurry, she said. It's easy to print information from all sorts of places.
Piles of paper can weigh heavy on our minds. They are reminders of things we need to get to - but don't.
"That starts to create anxiety and what we call 'clutter in your head,' " said professional organizer Heather Gold of Focus on Organization, who leads a clutter support group in Redding.
Plus, when papers are in disarray, it's difficult to locate information when you need it.
There's no need to crumple in the face of the paper menace. If you develop a system, you can put papers in their place - and you'll be in a better place too.
"You have this sense of order, you feel less stressed, you feel more peaceful," Carstens said. "And if you need something, you can find it."
With those goals in mind, we offer 10 tips for dealing with the onslaught of household papers.
1. Establish a filing system. A filing cabinet with two drawers is probably all you need to store papers that should be kept (tax documents, medical records, financial statements, car maintenance documents, etc.), Carstens said.
Important documents, such as birth certificates, living trusts and home inventories, need to be kept in a safety deposit box, fireproof home safe or at an attorney's office, she said.
2. Limit what comes in and what you keep. "It seems like we have so many pieces of paper that we pick up as we go through our day ... Most of the time it should never be brought home in the first place," Clem said.
Pare down what you bring home and what you hold onto, she said. Bank statements, utility records, pay statements and lots of other information can be obtained online, she noted.
"If someone else is tracking that paperwork for you, you don't have to," Clem said.
Bulky documents such as health insurance policies are good things to let someone else store online for you, Carstens said. It's easy to access them when you need information.
But some people - it's often a generational thing - aren't comfortable without having a copy in the home.
"What I suggest, if you feel like you need to hold onto the record, is to download a copy onto a CD," Gold said. "It's easier to store the CD than all that paperwork."
3. Update regularly. Go through files at least once a year and remove what you no longer need.
"I find time and time again, old cell phone manuals," Carstens said of working with her clients. If you no longer have the cell phone, you don't need the manual. Same goes for warranties that may have expired or that are for items you no longer own.
Carstens recommended getting rid of documents such as quarterly stock statements when the end-of-the-year statement arrives.
She suggested hanging onto tax returns indefinitely. Supporting documents for tax filings should be kept for at least three years, according to Susan Eaton, president of Tax Reps Inc., a tax and accounting practice in Redding. That's the time period for an audit, she said. However, if you file a fraudulent return or fail to file a return, there's no time limit on investigations. (For specifics on how long to keep records for various situations, visit the Internal Revenue Service Web site at www.irs.gov.)
4. Don't ignore mail. "Handle that mail immediately," Carstens advised.
Either act on it, file it or toss it (shred it if it includes your address or personal information).
"Clutter is postponed decisions," she said.
Gold said some people are too tired at the end of the day to deal with the mail. That's fine, she said, but designate one spot, such as a basket, to put it and set a time each week to deal with it.
It's also helpful to have a designated time to pay bills, Carstens said. Mark it on the calendar.
To shrink the amount of junk mail you receive, go to the Direct Marketing Association's mail preferences site at www.dmachoice.org.
5. Get a grip on magazines, newspapers and newsletters. "With magazines and newspapers, people feel like, 'I've got to read this.' Three years later it's still the same magazines," Gold said.
She suggested placing the issues that you most want to peruse in a magazine holder next to the chair where you read.
Remember that articles are available online, so you don't have to save everything. But if you really want to save an article, clip it rather than keeping the whole newspaper or magazine, Gold said.
Clem suggested putting articles in a binder and updating it regularly. "If the binder gets too full, you've saved too much."
6. Streamline catalogs. When a new Pottery Barn catalog arrives in the mail, throw out the one you already have, Carstens said. Save only current issues. Shrink the number of catalogs you receive by logging onto www.catalogchoice.org.
7. Contain recipes and coupons. Recipes are easy to find online. Gold said some sites offer the option of making your own recipe box so you can easily access favorite recipes. If you must clip, put the recipes in a book or attach it to an index card and keep the card in a recipe box, she said.
Regularly review coupons and toss out dated ones. "People save coupons that have been expired for five years," Carstens said. She recommended keeping coupons in a small container that you can take with you.
8. Stay on top of children's papers. If you have kids, you likely have an accumulation of school newsletters, field trip permission slips, homework, artwork, sports schedules, event fliers and more. Carstens recommended setting up a file for each child.
Gold said children's artwork can be saved in a portfolio folder or a scrapbook. And you don't have to save everything. Get children involved in the decisions about what to keep.
Carstens suggested students keep essays and homework assignments in a folder until grades are complete. Then shred or recycle them if there are no disputes.
9. Deal with mementos. "People like to hold onto Christmas cards, birthday cards, travel brochures. These mementos end up becoming overwhelming when they aren't being contained," Gold said.
Again, ask yourself if you really need to save it, she suggested. After you pare down what you have, keep the remaining items in a bin, file or scrapbook, she said.
10. Start small. Dealing with an overstuffed filing cabinet or a tabletop covered in a tangle of papers isn't easy. "People get overwhelmed, they don't know where to start," Carstens said.
Begin with a small, specific task, she said. Go through three file folders a night or one box of papers in a week. After you accomplish one job, you can build on your success.
Record Searchlight reporter Laura Christman can be reached at 225-8222 or lchristman@redding.com.
As published in the Record Searchlight, January 24, 2009, view original context
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