Marci @OvercomingBusy.com has left a new comment on your post “You ask, I’ll answer“:  

Here are my suggestions for temporary paper storage:

If you’re a visual person who has to SEE things in order to remember to do them, then I’d suggest a vertical organiser.

Look in the corner of my work desk and you’ll see an example in action. It’s that ugly brown thing.

You could also use a buddy drawer system like this one with clearly labelled drawers as to what’s inside. This works great for a bill-paying system. Make sure you go through those drawers regularly though.

or last but not least, you could use a tickler file system similar to this… but you’ve got to make sure you actually check those folders regularly. This will not work well if you’re an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person

How I store my paper temporarily:

I’m all about simple so I try not to overcomplicate things.

The type of paper applicable to our situation is typically a water and lights or telephone bill. I mark down the due date and amount due in my daily planner (and in Outlook – I hate unnecessary interest charges due to disorganisation) and then toss the bills in my “to file” pile in the study.

Once I pay by internet banking, I note down the date on the actual bill and when I do my filing, I file (but I only keep 3 months’ worth except for the water and lights bill because we have a very disorganised service provider).

That is it – couldn’t be shorter and sweeter

So, how do you store paper for a short time?

So project baby organising continues.

I had 3 shelves of files that I had to declutter to make way for the guest linen.

The way I see it is that if I haven’t even looked at these files once in the last 18 – 24 months, I probably don’t need it.

That was mostly true because some things were certificates from courses I’d attended, income tax records, etc.

When I got started, I must tell you I thought I wouldn’t be up for it, because I’d forgotten that things always look worse just before they get better.

This was all the paper I decluttered from the files

End result

• 2 1/2 empty shelves – yayy!
• 1/2 shelf of computer software and back-up discs all together in one space, not spread out in 3 different areas of the study
• Empty files that will go to a needy school in Johannesburg

No pics of final shelves because my husband’s stuff is there and we have a rule – no blogging about his mess

This month we’ll be decluttering home offices and today we’re starting with one of the absolute major organising challenges ever – PAPER.

In fact, a couple of years ago, I asked the readers of this blog what their biggest organising challenges were. The overwhelming response was paper and all things office – email, computer, desk, etc.

And so I wrote 7 easy steps to organise your office which, almost literally, flew off the virtual shelves.

I know it’s still the same out there because I get all your emails

If you don’t yet have the 7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook system, then read through a couple of the posts below to get some ideas.

Here are the posts…

1. Paper, paper and still more paper
2. Dealing with mail clutter
3. Paper decluttering
4. How I deal with all the paper

(if you don’t want to post on the theme, go right ahead and post on whatever you felt like decluttering

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Here is my contribution for this week
Before:

Categorising and sorting into the different files

After – aah, the bliss

Now tell me, did you declutter anything today?

Have a look at the Organise your Home e-course and get your entire home organised in just 12 weeks.

Now for this week’s challenge

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures and talk about what you decluttered. If you don’t have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything – physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism!

What did you declutter this week?