If paper is the No. 1 clutter culprit in your home, learn how to purge, organize and file in style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since most homes now have a computer, and the majority of bills, magazines and personal documents are available online, many have wondered if a day will come when we live in a \u201cpaperless world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the piles scattered about your dining room table, hall closet or kitchen counter are any indication, we\u2019ve got a long way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experts say that even though people claim the mess of bills, coupons and unopened mail is \u201corganized chaos,\u201d it\u2019s still chaos; and it\u2019s doing more harm than good. A cluttered environment cuts productivity and greatly increases stress at the office and at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeing organized saves time, money and piece of mind,\u201d says professional organizer Erin J. Kelly, founder of Arranged By Erin, a Chicago-based home-and-office organization firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese days, we\u2019re pulled in so many directions \u2013 home, work, church, civic duties \u2013 there\u2019s an extreme need to simplify a person\u2019s process so he or she can be more effective every day,\u201d says Kelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sue Monson is the office manager of a charter aviation company in Van Nuys, Calif., and says that the whirlwind of activity in her life shows most in her dining room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the place where mail or anything else brought into the house goes: on the dining room table. My husband never puts anything away, so it\u2019s up to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s those piles of mail that need to go first. Kelly says that working with clients on paper management is a huge part of her job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you can go 100-percent paperless, but you can definitely get to about 80 or 90 percent,\u201d she says. For magazines, invest in stylish file folders for those you collect, and make sure to dispose of all others month-to-month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kelly says investing in a scanner is the best way to begin such a process. All those old bills, business cards, receipts and even greeting cards can be scanned into your computer and stored on a disc, mobile device or online database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEveryone has a different \u2018tech level,\u2019\u201d says Kelly. \u201cWhen I work with a client, we figure out how comfortable they are with various technology and go from there.\u201d If you are comfortable with scanning documents, you can reduce the amount of paper in your home drastically as long as you save those files and label them with names you understand, and keep them in a sensible, easily located place, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kelly notes that even if a person isn\u2019t ready to scan documents and e-mail files, they can still un-clutter that entryway end table if they\u2019re willing to let go. She says people simply hold onto paper they don\u2019t need. \u201cCredit card receipts really can go after you pay your bill each month. Bank statements and utilities bills, too: These companies back up everything online now, and you can check that at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kelly also suggests creating a \u201cpending\u201d file box for information you don\u2019t know what to do with yet, or for documents that need to be verified, like a corrected credit card bill, or various applications and contracts. New designs, including paisley, stripes and floral prints, have removed the eyesore label from filing boxes, and help homeowners get more excited about organizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sue Monson says that she\u2019d love to hire a professional organizer someday to help her with her home paper problems. She insists that she wouldn\u2019t need help with her office since \u201cit\u2019s pretty neat already, probably because my husband has nothing to do with it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a9 CTW Features<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Published in Connections Magazine April 2020 Issue. Copyright 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If paper is the No. 1 clutter culprit in your home, learn how to purge, organize and file in style. Since most homes now have… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,8,7,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-get-organized","category-home","category-popular","category-tips-for-your-home"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}