Wrangling Paper with the 4 D’s of Paper Management

With tax season just behind us….I thought I would share a recent article that I wrote for the KV Style Magazine for the March 20th edition. I hope you enjoy it and will use the tips to prepare you for next year’s Income tax season.

Paper Paper everywhere…oh what do I do with all the paper?

Is the paper in your home localized to the kitchen counter or has it managed to spread itself throughout the house. Is it perhaps hiding in one of these spots? Home Paper

Bedroom closet, night stands, dresser drawers and floor.
Family room cupboards, end tables and floor.
Living room coffee table, chairs and under furniture.
Dining room table is a great big flat surface that is most times used for paper storage.
Mudroom cupboards.

Why does it do this? Because paper isn’t just one thing – it’s bills, it’s flyers, it’s magazines, permission slips, information sheets, calendars… And when something has so many possible storage places, unless you’re ruthless in maintaining it, paper ends up homeless and therefore shoved out of the way when company comes.

Tackling this issue is as simple as grabbing a simple laundry basket and collecting all loose paper; including magazines, newspapers, manuals, warrantees, homework, and all other individual pieces of paper. This may take some time but is quite necessary for the new system that you are going to create for the storage and organization of the paper.

As you sort the paper that you have gathered use the 4 D’s of paper management to help with the purge.

Deal

Open all mail as soon as you receive it, or at least batch it and do it once a week
If the piece of paper has an action associated with it, do the action right away if you can
If you can’t do it immediately, schedule when you’ll deal with it and store the piece of paper in a “Waiting Action” file

Decide

Sort all paper (including the mail) as it comes into the home.
To be dealt with
Information only
Pleasure
Or whatever categories you’ve come up with

Deposit

Is it recycling, something that you need to keep for income tax or legal reasons and just needs to be filed or do you need to do something with it?
As you deal with each item, store it where it belongs
Remember that some active papers (like magazines and school information) will be active but stored in the “Waiting Action” file

Destroy

Recycle junk mail and magazines
Shred anything that contains financial or address information that is not needed.
Whenever possible, use a one-in/one-out rule for your files, reducing the need for larger periodic purges. Things like old phone bills that you will have the last 12 months of.

For more paper wrangling tips visit OrganizingConnection.com