Discover how easy it is to declutter your paperwork and other paper items. First of all, you need to get a filing cabinet. At the very least, get a filing box. Or maybe even several boxes. You can buy them online or at just about any office supply or discount store.
If you have a home office, it’s very important at some point that you purchase a filing cabinet, Even with the age of digital forms and cybersaving sites you still need to have a filing cabinet. I doesn’t matter what anyone says, the “hard copy” of many documents, warranties and contracts will never totally disappear from the face of this earth. Also, keep in mind that every major appliance you buy includes with some type of operating manual. From that hot water heater to your refrigerator to your car, there are papers that need to be kept from each of these. It’s best to have them all stored together, rather than spread out all over the floor and cluttering up the drawer space in your home.
Instead of thinking about all the clutter that you currently have, begin visualizing your home as clutter free. Seriously, visualize it as clutter free. You’ll realize that as you go through your day that you’ll not only notice the clutter more, but you’ll slowly start to do something about it! It sounds weird, but after a while you have a mental picture of your home as (it should be) clean and organized. And the next thing you know, you’re taking steps (maybe just baby steps) towards your vision.
A lot of the clutter builds up in our homes simply because we refuse to deal with it “in the moment.” This concept is best demonstrated by the daily mail delivery. Every day your mail person drops mail off in your mail box. What exactly do you do with that mail? If you’re like the majority of people, you browse through it and then put it aside. Maybe you planned to deal with it after dinner or after the kids are in bed. However, you forget all about the mail and instead you end up reading a book or watching television.
Then you discover that a particular sales flyer for your local grocery store, that you set aside, is actually two weeks old and the sale is over. It either ended up being buried under a huge stack of junk mail or it fell under the couch. Yes, that is the nature of clutter. Instead of setting everything aside for later, you should have dealt with it in a more efficient way. You could have spent a few minutes separating the bills and placing them on your desk in a specific container, where you would then have them ready for the next time you need to pay them. Next, take the junk mail and start to prioritize that. Mail that you do not want should be thrown out immediately.
Sales ads that you may want to look over later, such as supermarket weekly sales ads, set aside in a basket where you can look at them later. Place this basket close to where you sit in the evening, that way you will remember them and at least glance through them. Now, at least you know where it is when you decide to write out this week’s shopping list.