How to Get Organized With Paper - Organization Tips For Paper Clutter Control

By Beverly OMalley
The secrets for how to get organized with paper are neither mysterious nor difficult. Paper organization like any other organizing task simply requires an understanding of the entire process of how paper gets into your house and what to do with it once it does.

Here are some tips for how to get organized with magazines, newspapers and mail. These are the three biggest sources of paper clutter in any home.

Magazines

If you want to know how to get organized with all your magazines you must take a good objective look at your magazine subscriptions. That means being really honest. You might love every magazine but do you really read every magazine cover to cover? If you do, make sure you toss it in the recycling bin after you have read it.

If magazines pile up because you do not read them then the best paper organization tip for handling magazines is eliminating them. Stop magazine subscriptions for those magazines that you do not read from cover to cover. You are much better off financially just purchasing a copy at the news stand every few months rather than having them flood into your home.

Get your subscriptions and newsletters delivered online. Many magazines are now offering online subscriptions which greatly decreases the amount of paper clutter in your home.

If you have to keep a magazine subscription then just keep the article and not the magazine. Simply cut out the article you want and place it in a plastic page protector and slip it into a binder. Now you have your favourite articles all in one spot. Recycle the remainder of the magazine, it is mostly just advertising anyway

Newspapers

When it comes to paper organization with newspapers, less is best. Try to limit your newspaper subscription to one daily. Keep a good size recycle bin close to the door where the newspaper can be easily deposited at the end of the day. Establish good paper clutter control habits and always put the newspaper to bed in the recycle bin before you go to bed yourself!

Mail

Never respond to junk mail of any kind. The information you provide on your response to junk mail is put onto a mailing list and the list is sold to other direct mail marketers. More junk mail will follow.

Keep a recycling bin close to where you open you mail and get into the habit of using it. Toss any junk mail and all the envelopes and paper packaging.

If you pick up your mail when you come home from work, make sure you sort and decide right away what to do with each piece of mail.

Two questions are necessary:

do I need to act on this (pay a bill or follow up with correspondence or a telephone call)
is this information that should be retained, perhaps for legal or future reference.

Place anything that you need to act on in a special file for action and place anything that needs to be retained for reference purposes into a filing cabinet in its own file.

Making the toss, act, retain decisions right away when you have your mail in your hand will help you to sort through your mail quickly and have everything filed and put away before you even take your coat off!

When I think of how to get organized with paper I think of eliminating it completely! As much as possible get your bills sent to you electronically and arrange for internet banking or automatic money transfers to pay your monthly bills. Not only is this a clutter control strategy for paper organization but it saves you time and money as well because you have no more stamps or cheques to purchase and no more trips to the post office.

These easy and simple paper organization tips for how to get organized with magazines, newspapers, and mail will help you reduce and manage the many pounds of paper that come into your life. Once thing is for certain, without a clutter control system in place you could soon be buried in paper!

About the Author:  There are many methods for organizing paperwork. Beverly OMalley has organizing tips for how to get organized with paper at http://www.organization-makes-sense.com including how to sort your personal paperwork and set up color coded files.