taming the paperwork beast

 

It’s hard to believe we’re in the second week of the year already! January brings about all sorts of resolutions, promises, and challenges to ourselves. One of the many areas in which most people want to do better in is organization. I’m walking you through 10 simple steps to get more organized. Today’s tip might actually take two posts to write- ’cause it’s a big one!

I jokingly told my husband the other day that stress rates in America would go down by 50% if we could cut back on the amount of paperwork in our lives! There is just.so.much. I have also been know to say I’d rather have dental work done than do a “paperwork day.” (and this is coming from the girl who’s had only 1 cavity, ever, but it took 2.5 hours to fill!)

Although I’m not claiming to be an expert in this area (if only you could see my desk right now! ha!) there are several things I’ve learned along the way that have made things a little more manageable. Are you ready?

1.) Sort your mail in your “first office”

Now this may sound silly, but it has cut down on the amount of out-of-control mail and paperwork in our house. I consider my car my “first office” and I sort the mail before I get out of the car. I make a few piles: throw away, coupons I want to keep, items that need action, and items that just need to be filed.

I throw the junk mail away in our garage (as long as it isn’t a credit card offer- those get shredded for security’s sake) so it never even enters the house. It makes me sick how much we get and gets tossed- some days our mail is 100% junk. (does mail advertising even work anymore?)

Then, I put the coupons I want to keep in a folder in the door of my car. So they also never even enter the house. And also? I don’t get to a store and say, “Oh, I had a coupon for that! AT HOME!” They don’t do any good if you don’t have them, right? This has been one of my favorite tricks.

Once inside, I have a large filing box (I got mine from IKEA but you can get them here on Amazon) where I put stuff that needs attention (bills, forms to fill out, etc.). If it’s a personal letter or card (I do still get a few of those and LOVE it!), I also have a special box for that. Then I also have magazine holders (mine are like this, but different colors) for sorting as well. One for medical (EOBs from insurance and medical bills); a magazine holder for children- things like  shot records go in here, as well as art I want to keep. (I’ll show you what I do with the HUGE collection of that later!) I also have one for receipts, one for magazines I want to keep, a homeschool organizer for curriculum magazines and info about conferences, and an “etc.”holder as well.

When my desk is all organized it looks like this:

We painted it ourselves and you can read more about that here.

Now, moving forward.

2. Bills

The best advice I have for bills is to pay a bill as soon as you get it. If you have the money in the bank, why file it away or potentially lose it when you can just take care of it? Then, you don’t run the risk of late fees (boo for throwing money away!) or even worse, getting a utility turned off just because you forgot to pay the bill.

And speaking of, if you’re SUPER disorganized, you can use online bill paying and even have companies auto-draft for bills that recur each month. Receiving bills online, too, also cuts down on the amount of paperwork you have to file. You can just “file” the bill on a virtual folder on your computer.

My favorite option for online bill pay is to pay it through my bank rather than directly through the company. I have more control on changing a date if I need to, or stopping a recurring payment all together. I only have one bill that I have set up to auto-draft, and that is a bill that is exactly the same amount each month. Otherwise, I like to look at a bill before I pay it. 🙂

(Speaking of bills, read my post here about Zero Credit Card Debt)

The paperwork beast is not one that is easily tamed, but you can do it!

Here’s the “homework” for today; did you do your homework from Tuesday? I’d love to hear what you’ve cleaned out!

Action steps: Purge your 7 items. Doesn’t it feel good?

Begin today sorting your mail in “your first office.” File the “real” mail as soon as you get home. Buy organizational tools if you need to, or just use cardboard boxes if you don’t want to spend money!

Spend a few minutes setting up online-bill pay for some of your recurring bills. Then, take a few more minutes and pay any outstanding bills for which you have money in the bank.

Joining the organization party late? Check out tips 1 &2 here, and tip 3 here!

disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, but all opinions are my own