Step three is PAPERS. We have so many papers! I have never been in anyone's house who doesn't have piles and piles of papers. There's a pile by my bed, a pile on my dresser, a pile by the front door, a pile on the kitchen counter, a pile on the couch, and three piles on the desk. It's crazy! It's just paper, but we cling to it likes it's gold. Why? Because it's not just paper. It's a decision to be made. It's a task to be done. Do I need to keep this coupon so I can buy this item in the ad? Am I going to this wedding, am I going to buy a gift? Can I just take 30 seconds and sit down and fill out this school form? Will I ever read this article I've been saving? These are tiny decision and tiny tasks, but for some reason I put them off again and again. So the papers pile up waiting for me to make a decision.
The category of papers includes a lot of things. Some sub categories might include important papers like birth certificates, useful papers like stationary, sentimental papers like letters, and daily papers like mail. To make things easier on myself, I narrowed down the scope of papers I had to deal with. I excluded anything that I would consider stationary (note pads and envelopes), anything sentimental (cards, pictures, letters), and anything in the garage. Okay, so that last bit was sort of a cop-out, but I literally have a dozen boxes of papers in my garage that I just can't get to yet because my garage is a total dump. So I will definitely have to go back and redo papers again in the future when my garage becomes accessible.
According to Marie Kondo, the key to sorting papers it to essentially throw everything away. That is a little bit hard to do, but wouldn't it feel great? Why do we keep user's manuals for appliances? You know you'll just look it up online if you need it anyway. Do you actually need a paper menu from a restaurant? No. Again, that's all online. Trash it all.
The konmari method is to have all your papers reduced down to a single file box with only two categories: things to keep forever and things to deal with now. Things to keep forever include birth certificates and car titles. Things to deal with now include permission slips and bills.
Again, it's essential to bring all your papers into one space so they can be dealt with as a whole. So I gathered up every pile of paper I could find (excluding of course the garage which I am still hiding from), and piled them on my kitchen table. The pile was smaller than I expected which tells me I've got way too many papers still in my garage. Then I pulled out the two categories I wasn't dealing with yet, stationary and sentimental. Then I began the long process of sorting and trashing.
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| Spread out all over my house, this was overwhelming. But all in one pile, it seemed more manageable. |
I felt like I needed slightly more categories than this. I have a big family, and there are some things in the "keep forever" category that I feel like just need their own files. Taxes. I constantly need copies of my tax returns for a million different reasons, so I keep several years on hand. I kept an extra file for academic transcripts. We've got multiple kids in school, and transcripts are often needed for various applications. I also made a file for teaching credentials. As teachers, my husband and I have to continually renew our certification, and this takes paper verification. I made a file for medical records. Two of my kids have chronic medical conditions, and I frequently need their medical records at my fingertips to take to doctor's appointments. Lastly I made a file for legal issues. We have had some bad business dealings that required litigation, so I am hanging on to a file of evidence just in case we ever need it.
I also kept a couple of individual files for things that need dealt with currently. Besides just having what is essentially our mail pile, I made a few other piles for current projects. One of my boys is currently home-schooled, so I need a file to keep up with his school work. I am also planning a super road trip for this summer (stay tuned for that!) and need a file for maps and location ideas as I continue to plan. And let's not forget coupons. I totally need a file for coupons.
Things I definitely got rid of were papers from old meetings that I knew I wasn't going to reread again. Also, all owners manuals and receipts (I really can get those back online if I need them). Basically anything that I could get online, I threw away. It will be easier to print it again in the future when I really need it then it would be to try and organize and store it for eternity.
So at the moment, my papers are pared down to two small file boxes. Basically a "now" and "forever" box. In the future I may be able to consolidate these into less space, but for now I feel like it's a good start.
*BONUS: While sorting I also found more than a few gift cards buried away in all my papers, so I actually MADE money cleaning!
Happy trashing!
P.S. Confessions of failure: Let's be honest. The dozen boxes of papers in my garage constitute a real failure. The reason those boxes are in the garage in the first place is because they were things I didn't feel like dealing with at the time. Work papers, educational materials, etc. All things that seem valuable and yet have to real place in my home. So in reality, the hard work of sorting papers is still ahead of me. My hope is, however, that when I get to those boxes, I will have a firm idea in mind about what kind of papers are worth keeping and can be let go. And for the moment at least, there are NO piles of paper anywhere in my house. Hooray!
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