Stumped on how to organize your paper? Start by eliminating paper you don’t need.
Do you associate eliminating paper with snow? I didn’t either until recently. I live in Peoria, Illinois, which is roughly halfway between Chicago and St. Louis. A couple weekends ago, while my Minnesota relatives walked on brown grass and clear streets, my grass and streets accumulated nearly 12 inches of snow. It was pretty, but also a pain. There’s a reason why I moved eight hours south of my Minnesota hometown.
Since I am what you call a white-knuckling, heart-palpitating, shouting-for-everyone-to-be-quiet-while-I-drive kind of chicken when it comes to winter roads, I stayed inside. I did what any good Professional Organizer does in a snowstorm. I cleaned my desk drawers.
Then it occurred to me: why not get rid of an inch of paper for every inch of snow?
Last year, I eliminated dozens of binders of papers using my amazing Fujitsu ScanSnap IX500 that can scan an inch of double-sided papers in about a minute. Could I find a foot of paper? Yes, indeed. I emptied my file drawer and evaluated the contents of each file using these questions:
- Is there a legal reason that I need this? (Such as tax documents, proof of identity, medical papers, and important business and credential documents)
- Am I doing something now with this paper?
- Could I find this again if I need it?
- Can I scan this and keep it digitally rather than as a paper file?
- Have my interests changed?
- Am I being honest about what my needs and realities are now or using wishful thinking?
- Will my life be worse without this paper?
My eliminated papers fell into three categories: 1. Stuff like magazine articles that I didn’t need and could recycle; 2. Medical papers that I had been collecting; 3. Notes from credentialing recertification classes and conferences.
For the medical papers, I decided it was worthwhile for me to have these papers in my possession rather than housed at the doctor’s office. However, I didn’t need the paper version, so I put them in date order, scanned them, put then shredded the papers (after taking the snow photo above, of course).
Some of my notes from conferences and professional classes were also scanned. When I didn’t take many notes on the paper handout, I didn’t bother to scan it. If I took tons of notes, I scanned them. In my opinion, the key info gleaned from conferences and classes are best applied in the week after taking it or added into a longer to do management system. People do not often go back, months after, to read their notes. Because there have been a few occassions where I have, it made sense to digitize these, then recycle the paper.
My mission to succeed at the one foot paper challenge spurred me to keep going past where I would have stopped.
It feels great to have more space and even better, the process of going through my files reminded me of helpful resources to include in my upcoming book, Who Am I Now: Realign Your Home and Life, due out at the end of March.
What challenge would you set for yourself? Comment below.
P.S. if you don’t live somewhere that gets snow, chose your own inch challenge, or go for 12″ like me.
