Real Solutions For Living...It's Okay to Pile the Paper

Yep! You heard me. If you naturally pile papers, who says you have to develop some staunchy filing system? Stop feeling guilty about your natural tendencies and start getting creative about how to accommodate them. Let's see how we can be organized in spite of having piles of papers.

I am always advising my clients to first develop a system of sorts to handle today's information and what will be coming into your life from now on. Don't give in to the temptation to try get a handle on the backlog of papers. Unless, of course, the IRS is meeting with you tomorrow for an audit and you have to search for those receipts hidden everywhere! The backlog can be dealt with as you have the time, once you have an organized system to handle your current life in place.

You should begin with the types of paperwork that comes in on a daily/weekly basis. What types of categories, on average, will you be handling? Don't worry about any categories that aren't keepers, like junk mail. Just make a list of the kinds of paper that enters your office or home (whichever you are organizing) that needs your attention.

The categories you discover are fairly regular may look like this: * bills to be paid
* things I may want/need to reference
* things I have to take action on (call, sign, respond, . . .)
* delegate to someone else
* don't know what to do with
* important documents I have to keep
* school papers (artwork, school work, newsletters, permission slips, . . .)
* catalogs
* magazines
* advertisements I may want to look through

These are just suggestions. Each of us will have our own unique categories.

Once you know what types of categories you will be dealing with, you can start creating your game plan. You will need to set up practical spots for certain types of categories. In other words, you need a home for each type of paper you deal with. For example, if your habit is to come in through the mudroom at the end of the day with your mail in your hand and you automatically drop it on the top of the dryer as you walk by, then you will want to create the home for your mail in the mudroom. How? Perhaps you could place a tray or shallow basket on top of the dryer to catch and contain the mail. This will keep the "pile" from tumbling off the sides of the dryer and slipping underneath. Besides, a shallow basket has a built-in boundary -- it only holds so much before it starts to overflow. You will have to pay attention to its contents regularly enough so that "pile" doesn't overflow.

Using the mail/mudroom example again, you could also place a similar container on a shelf in that room for the mail to go into. Or place a container on a side table or counter. The main idea is to find a way to keep the pile contained, which keeps it under controlled, and still keep it where it's convenient.

There is an important element to this system. Using containers does provide boundaries of how much can be stored or kept-in-waiting, but you will need to develop the habit of mindfully maintaining the amount of papers you allow to pile up in your containers.

Let's take school papers as an example. Let's say the children usually drop their bookbags on the family room couch after school. Perhaps you could have a couple of totes or baskets tucked under the coffee table for them to place their school papers into. Let them create their own label for their own container (they'll be more apt to use it). Have them develop the habit of getting all of their papers out of their bags and into their containers. This will help them to learn discipline, responsibility, and organization.

Now that all of the school papers are in the home that's created for school papers, you will know exactly where to look when you need to find out what time the school assembly will be starting, or where that homework sheet is. Develop the habit of checking the containers daily to be sure you are on top of anything the teacher may require of you.

What to do when the containers begin to get full? First of all, pick out containers that aren't too deep to begin with. Let the children choose their top 8 (5, 12 -- pick a fair number) work pieces to keep. They can choose to give some of the others to grandparents if they'd like. Store the keepers in page protectors in binders, or plastic tubs, and tuck them away in your storage spaces.

When you have a few different categories that need to be kept in the same spot, try color coding, stacking trays, vertical file holders, slanted letter holders and other similar items office supply stores carry. More companies are creating products to accommodate those of us who prefer to pile.

You could get colored transparent folders, for instance, to keep various categories separate yet still stacked in a pile. Pendaflex makes these cute little clips that's sort of like paper clips, but it has a space to write in. They come in different colors. You simply write the category on the clip, clip it onto your cache of papers, and stack them. From the top or side of the stack of papers, you can see these "tabbed paper clips" clearly, poking out from the side of the pile, with the categories letting you know where in the pile a certain group of papers can be found.

Another trick is to place high priority items on the top of your pile, placing low priorities on the bottom. The trick with this is that you must give this type of pile your attention on a regular basis. What defines regular for you will depend on how much comes in for that category each day. You may have to take action on that pile daily or weekly, depending on your needs.

Once the papers are dealt with and you no longer need to have it accessable, you can then put it in some sort of "filing" system. It doesn't actually have to be in a file or file cabinet, just contained and labeled. Use a box with a lid, or gallon sized zip-closed plastic bags that can be stored in a drawer.

One last tip for paper pilers: you can always throw paper away. Ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen if I throw this away? If you can live with the answer, toss the paper.