Clear the Clutter Challenge Day 10: End the Paper Trail

A three-ring binder by any other name is still a binder.  However, it is a binder that is going to help us end the paper trail on Challenge Day 10!

Do you have a ton of paper cluttering up your life?  I know I sure do.  It’s exhausting never knowing where documents are or if I forgot about something because all of my paper is in stacks instead of properly filed.  We do have a very small filing cabinet, but it was always a mess, so I moved the files to the bookshelf.  Now I have no idea what is in them.  I have finally seen the light though and I am going to get rid of this paper clutter once and for all.

There have been several articles about using binders for blog information or to make an emergency information kit.  We’ll be using that premise and taking it a step further.  Binders, a hole punch, and plastic page covers are all we really need to organize our documents.  These binders will go on a shelf (properly labeled on the outside) and we will no longer have to sift through everything trying to find that one pertinent piece of paperwork!

Of course, you should organize your paper in a way that works best for you and your home.  If you need a little help though, here are some tips:

• Separate your papers into individual stacks…i.e., bills in one place, financial papers in one place, keepsakes, etc., etc.
• Determine what goes in each binder.  For instance, I will have one binder with tax information, one with banking, one with utilities, one with medical, and so on and so forth.  Does that make sense?  You can choose what information goes into each binder–just documents or username/passwords and things like that.
• Some documents you may not want to punch holes in.  That’s where the plastic page covers come in.  (Make sure to get the ones you load from the top that have the three holes in the side tab.)  Things like car titles, tax documents, and birth certificates definitely don’t need a hole in them!
• I recommend starting an emergency binder for your really important documents or at least include copies of them.  You can find several different kinds of emergency binders on my Organize Me Pinterest Board!
• Start putting papers into the various binders.  Work as long as you can.
• Shelve those bad boys!!

That’s pretty much it.  Not too bad, huh?!?  It’s completely understandable if they don’t all get finished in one day.  That would be ideal, but real life isn’t generally about ideal!!  Just keep them in one place and work on them until they are finished.

Do you have a lot of paper clutter?  Have you ever used a binder system?  Tell us all about it and join the Clear the Clutter Challenge while you are at it!