![Paper: Identify the Problem (and solution!)]()
by Katherine Macey
Is paper a problem in your life? Does it end up all over the house? Are there piles on your desk? Let’s identify the problem and then look at some solutions.
First, the problem. Paper comes into your house or your office. You have other things to attend to right away, so you drop your mail on the nearest horizontal surface on the way to your task. What happens is that over time, piles are distributed everywhere. There is no semblance of order. You don’t know what mail is oldest and which is newest. Time sensitive mail, such as bills, are mixed in with junk mail. There is no method to the madness. You are overwhelmed with the clutter.
Contrast this with the ideal situation. You bring your mail in and deal with it immediately, each day. It doesn’t even reach a surface because it is dealt with immediately. There are no piles, no overwhelming paper clutter. You can access any piece of information within 30 seconds. Your bills and correspondence are up to date.
It is difficult to change our habits overnight, but there are steps we can take to move towards our ideal.
One of the first steps is to create a landing spot for your mail. It could be a tray, an attractive box, or my favorite, a magazine rack like
this one from OfficeMax. I like the vertical sorters because they take up less horizontal space and they have limited space – so you are forced to sort your mail on a regular basis.
Another idea if you have several people in your home or office is to use a hanging wall organizer with a pocket for each person. Pendaflex has one like
this.
There are many different ways to manage your mail. The first step is to contain it in one manageable place.
by Katherine Macey
Do you have more paper clutter than you know what to do with? Can you find a specific piece of paper when you need it? How do you manage the information contained in all the paper you have?
Control your paper clutter – FAR your mail: File, Action, Recycle.
If you have piles of paper, try doing a pre-sort first. It’s easier to keep only a few categories in mind to start with. I use the FAR method, adapted from Julie Morgenstern’s FAT method. She uses File, Act, Trash. I take her trash and put it in the recycling. Now we’re going FAR with our mail! This initial pre-sort can be done very quickly into two piles and the recycling bin.
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Is paper a problem in your life? Does it end up all over the house? Are there piles on your desk? Let’s identify the problem and then look at some solutions.