How to Help Busy Mom's Control PaperworkDoes it seem like every time you turn around there are more and more stacks of paper everywhere in your house. Do you think they multiply at night? Do elves come in and wave a magic wand to watch your papers grow? Do they get points for this? If only the tooth fairy would leave us a dollar for every piece of mail, school papers, or newspaper we accumulate!
The day-to-day volume of paper that passes through your life is definitely a challenge. We have put together some tips to help you deal with a few of the more challenging paper clutter sources such as mail, kids' school papers, take-out menus and coupons or store flyers.
HERE’S THE MAIL, IT NEVER FAILS ...
Mail is like a weed, if you don't create a routine to manage it, it multiplies like crazy and will take over any free space you have in your house. One day I looked around my house and saw paper piles on the kitchen counter, the kitchen table, the wash machine, the family room coffee table, my office desk, the printer, the stairs and in a stack in my car. Agh! It's just too much and spread out in too many places. It's hard to find anything. The National Association of Professional Organizers estimates that 25% of Americans pay their bills late because they can't find them. I know I've called Visa begging for forgiveness from late fees as I explained that I put the bill in a pile and forgot about it. However, I decided that this clutter was a problem and I went about looking for the following tips and tricks to help me get control of the paperwork chaos. Not all of these tips may appeal to you or work with your lifestyle but hopefully some of them will be easy for you to adapt and start you on the path to defeating the paperwork elves.
The "Touch it Once" Rule
While this rule can't appeal for every piece of mail that comes in the door it has certainly helped me strive to meet the goal. The Rule is simple. Only touch each piece of mail once. Open it, act on it, and then file it or throw it away. If you get a bill in the mail, open it next to where you store your checkbook, pay the bill and move on. This way it is done and won't be hanging over your head. Not only will this reduce your daily stress but it also allows you to get rid of the paperwork piles. Put it in the paid bill file, shred it or throw it away but don’t leave it sitting in a pile anywhere in the house.
Let's say you receive a birthday party invitation for your kids in the mail. Call and RSVP immediately! Write the date and time in the Family Calendar so everyone can see the event or enter it into your Palm Pilot. {Tip: Enter in an appointment to go shopping for the birthday gift a day or two ahead. This way you won't be scrambling to find something at Target the night before the party.} Then you can put the invitation away in a temporary file folder to wait for the day you need the directions. Again, don’t put it in a pile and forget to RSVP so you have to make that apologetic phone call. Touch it once.
However, we do realize that the "Touch it Once" Rule can't apply to everything. Or, you may have a system where you pay bills online once a month so you can't drop everything and pay the bill as it arrives in the house. Never fear! We can deal with this but you need to designate a place to put these bills or mail so that you can easily find them and keep control over the paper chaos.
No More Piles! Stop the Madness!
We use a hanging file folder that we found at the Container Store. It is basically an accordian file folder but you hang it on the wall and the folders cascade down so you can see them all. The goal we set for this file folder is that it is a place to store items for no more than a week or two. Bills, coupons, invitations, school event flyers, financial statements, etc. - this is their temporary home to keep the clutter off of the tables and counters until we pay them, take them to the office to be filed permanently or throw them out.
With these hanging file folders you can customize the folder names and temporarily store the papers you need. Here are some of the folders that we have created to deal with the mess o'mail:
Bills. Once a week I grab all items in this folder, walk to my computer and pay them online or write a check. I do it every Friday morning. By making it a habit, I don't forget to pay them and I pay frequently enough that I'm not paying bills late and racking up late fees.
Kids. This file folder holds our flyers from daycare, school, or sport teams that we might need to look at frequently for a week or two, but then we can throw it out. If your kids aren't in school yet, just wait. You'll be amazed at the amount of paperwork and "homework" Mom gets.
Artwork. I store all of the cool artwork the kids bring home everyday and once a week I decide to pitch it, hang it, or put it in their Artwork Storage Folders to save for posterity.
Filing. This is where the mutual fund, bank, tax, medical, and receipt statements are filed temporarily. On Friday when I pay the bills, I also carry these items into the office where they go in our more permanent hanging folders in our office credenza. This is where we file all paperwork that needs to be saved for 1 - 3 years.
Coupons. If a store sends us a direct mailer with a coupon offer, I store it here in the folder. Then if I am heading to the store I know where it is and can easily grab it. Once the sale is up - pitch it! I can also hold the coupons here until I transfer them to a Coupon Organizer, which I keep in my car. You never know when you will be near a Gymboree and want that 30% off coupon.
Shred. We get so many credit card applications that I have to cry at all of the trees that are being cut down for NOTHING! With all of the reports on identity theft and fraud, we definitely want to shred these credit card applications. So I file them temporarily and once a week I turn the shredder on to get rid of them. Don't let these intimidate you. File and shred. File and shred!
TIP: Put your mail filing folder near where you normally sort the mail. We come into our house through the garage and the first room is our laundry room. The top of the washer and dryer had become our sort and mail pile mess area. So, we hang our mail file folder right there on the wall in the laundry room. The goal is that the mail shouldn't accidentally sneak out of this room until we are ready. Back mail, back! Sort it, act on it, and temporarily file it right here as you walk in the house.
What are you waiting for?
Step 1: Get a temporary filing folder of some kind. We mentioned the hanging version from the Container Store. But a standing accordian file will work just as well. Or get a desk letter sorter and use labeled manilla folders. Get a binder with pocket folders inside. Anything that works for you. {Shameless Plug: Check out our Mom's Plan-it™ Organizers. They can help you as well. We have Organizers for Kids' Papers, Taxes, Home Projects, Shopping and even Family Vacations to help you keep your paperwork in one place and easy to find.}
Step 2: Now, gather up every pile of mail that you have in the house. Sort it into categories. There you have the amount of folders you need. Label them, put the mail in their respective places, and viola! You can see your counters.
Step 3: The hard part is the discipline. Make yourself a deal. If you sort the mail and use the folders like this for a week, give yourself a piece of chocolate cake as a reward. Second week, do the same thing. Third week - it should be starting to become habit and you don't need to eat as much cake. (Eat the cake for another reason, now.)
TIP: Another way to get a handle on the mail is to reduce the amount of mail that you get. You can go to Optoutprescreen.com to opt-out of all credit card and insurance offers. This alone reduced my mail by half. You can opt out electronically for five years, or print a form to mail in to opt-out permanently. You do need to share your social security number so if you aren't comfortable doing so online, you can mail it in or call 888-5-OPTOUT. You can also go to the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service website at: https://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing.
For a $1 fee, they will help to remove your name and address from prospective mailing lists. This may prevent you from getting any catalogs, new catalogs, coupons or business announcements but if you throw all of that out anyway, then sign up for help.
TIP: When you get your mail out of the mailbox, walk over to the recycle bin to sort it. It makes life so much easier to be able to immediately pitch items that you don't want.Don't even let it in the house. This allows you to weed out the junk that makes up the majority of your mail anyway. Not only does it make you feel better that you are helping the environment by recycling but there is some weird satisfaction to saying "I don't want you" to the mail and seeing it gone immediately.
NEWSPAPERS/ MAGAZINES/ CATALOGS
These items take up a large amount of space, they also take a time commitment on your part to read them. Let three months go by without reading your magazines or catalogs and see how big that pile is. Scary! Now you're freaked out so they will probably never get read. Once you reach that panic point where the pile looks too intimidating to tackle, throw them out. You have successfully made it through the past three months without reading them, so you don't need them. Throw them in the recycle bin and start fresh by reading the new magazines that come in.
However, ask yourself, do you really need these magazines? If you find that you never read them, stop the subscription. It will save you time, money and stress by not having to feel guilty looking at the pile. Same thing with your newspaper. Do you really read it? If you want the news could you just get updates online? Can you change your subscription and just get the newspaper on Sunday? You need to ask yourself these questions because if there is an opportunity to make your life less stressful, take it. If a new baby in the house is taking all of your time so you can't read, fine, cancel the subscription for a year or two and subscribe again when you are ready. The magazine people won't be offended, I promise.
We still get the newspaper daily because I have to read the comics and do the crossword puzzle before I go to sleep. You can't do this with an online edition. My husband likes the sports pages and I clip articles relating to Moms, kids and online businesses. To us, the newspaper is worth it. But, we do need a specific place for it. Again, from the Container Store, we bought a newspaper size storage box. This large box sits on our dryer - again right when you come in the house - and it holds the day's newspaper, sale ads we might want to look at during the week, magazines and catalogs. This is our reading pile basically. The newspaper goes into the recycle bin every morning, the sale ads get pitched at the end of the week when the new weekly ads come in, the catalogs get pitched after a month and any magazine older than three months is gone. Whew! That's the new system that my husband and I devised and so far it's working great for us to control clutter.
TAKE-OUT MENUS AND COUPONS
I just wanted to take a little time to talk about the clutter that I had in one of my kitchen drawers. It got to the point where I could barely open the drawer because it was stuffed full of take-out menus and coupons. As I was cleaning out the drawer, I thought about all of the times I went to a store and had to smack myself in the head because my great 30% off coupon was home in the coupon drawer where it does me no good.
I solved this problem by getting a coupon organizer that I keep under my seat in the car. This way, if you have 15 minutes to kill between appointments or you happen to be driving over by Kohls, you have your coupons with you, ready to go. {Shameless Plug: I like the Mom's Plan-it Shopping Organizer that we sell at on our site. It’s small so it is easy to keep in the glove compartment or under the seat in the car. It has a pad of paper to make those shopping lists to keep you focused on buying what you need. And, it also has very handy cards that let you jot down the sizes of the people you normally buy for. Trust me, with everything that busy Moms have to remember, it's hard to recall whether your son's last pair of sneakers were a size 1 or 2.}
As we cleaned out the drawer in our kitchen we realized we had duplicate take-out menus, menus from restaurants that had gone out of business, and restaurant coupons that needed to be put in one easy to find spot. We pitched most of this mess and kept the good stuff together in a Take-Out Menu Organizer, which happens to be one of our best selling items. We keep it in the car. Why? We realized that many of the times when we decide to get carry-out for dinner is when I am driving home from picking up the kids from daycare or school. I'm talking on the phone with my husband with the typical "What do you want for dinner?" conversation and we decide we are tired and will order out. But without the menus in the car, we don’t have the phone number and we may not be able to recite the restaurant’s menu by heart. (Embarrassingly enough, we can do that for a few restaurants.) We want to order while we are still in the cars and one of us can pick up dinner easily on the way home. Put the menus in the car and viola! Dinner is served.
{Shameless Plug: We love the Take-Out Menu Organizer that we sell because it includes a pad of paper and a pen so I can write down what my husband and kids want before I order. (Have I mentioned that I can't remember anything anymore?) It also has a zip up pouch for coupons and dividers for you to sort the menus out for easy access. Create folders for Chinese, Thai, Pizza, Italian, Kid-Friendly or Great Burger Fixes. Trust me, you'll feel a lot more organized and in control if you're the kind of family that likes to order in food regularly.}
So, get all of those catalogs and magazines off the counter and out of the bathroom. Consolidate them all into a “reading” container. Purge it regularly and don’t feel guilty if you didn’t read everything you saved. Move on!
Then get a Coupon and Take-Out Menu Organizer and clean out that kitchen drawer. Reclaim the drawer for kitchen items and put the menus and coupons where you think they’ll do you the most good. If not your car, then someplace where you can easily grab them or use them most often.
Don’t be paralyzed thinking it will take a long time to do this. Give yourself 15 minutes today to organize. When the time is up, stop, and save it for another 15 minutes the next day. It doesn’t have to be done in one day. When you are finished, treat yourself to a Chocolate Cake Moment™. You deserve it!
Sue Kirchner is the founder and President of www.ChocolateCakeClub.com, an e-boutique that aims to make life easier for busy parents, so they can have more "Chocolate Cake Moments" - when they are smiling, relaxed, and appreciating their role as a parent. The Chocolate Cake Club is a trusted source for products that help busy Moms put their feet up and smile. The boutique features products that help Moms get organized, encourage their kids to be more self-sufficient, and distinguish them as a Mom-who's-got-it-together with must-have gifts and parenting tools. She is also the mother of two young children.
© 2007, Chocolate Cake Club, Inc. Chocolate Cake Club and Chocolate Cake Moment are trademarks of the Chocolate Cake Club, Inc.
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