What do you do with papers? Do they pile up around the kitchen, office, living room… pretty much everywhere? If you are like us, you might have lost an important paper before, even though you were just certain it was in that pile over there. Or was it that other one? Or the other other one?
And how do you go about paying bills when you can’t find them? Sometimes it takes a crisis like misplacing a critical document to realize that you need a better system.
I won’t pretend to know what works for you and your family, but I can share what is working for me.
My first system was a set of baskets that helped me stay organized. I had “To Do”, “To File”, “Receipts”, and “Shred”. This worked well for me. Receipts would be collected in one basket, and on the first of every month I would put all the previous month’s receipts in one envelope and label it with the month and year. This kept me from having to sort them by date later on. Mail went in the “To Do” basket immediately, unless it was junk. When I finished a “To Do” item I would move it to the “To-File” or “Shred” box. If I wasn’t diligent about filing, that box would get really full. I hated filing because it meant sorting through too many papers. Also, if I needed to find something, it was sometimes difficult to find if I wasn’t sure if it had been filed yet or not. And who has time for that? But aside from those issues, the system worked pretty well.
As we neared the end of our recent period of transition I began reading up on different organizational systems. There are many good ideas out there, and I recommend that you find what works for you. I took some of the different approaches and combined/modified them to meet our needs. Here is what I have been using:
To explain this, it is a 3” binder with the plastic divider folders labeled as temporary filing for papers that come in. My labels include things like:
Bills- not paid
Bills- paid
Shopping (for coupons, ads, gift cards, etc)
Events (for invitations, flyers)
Checks
Banking
House-related
Healthcare- for each person
Home-based business
Recipes
Cars (receipts from repairs, registration, etc.)
Manuals
Donations
These categories cover most of the mail that comes in. The key to making this work is actually using it and emptying it monthly by doing your filing. I will mention that it’s a lot easier to find where things should go in the real filing cabinet when all your papers are already pre-sorted into these general categories. I don’t dread the filing so much anymore. I still use the baskets for “Receipts” and “Shred”.
So there you have the “meat” of how I sort mail that comes in. Do you have a system that works for you? Share your tips in the comments or email me!
Online bill pay makes my life easier because I just mark notification emails unread as reminders and write due dates in my planner. I love my planner 🙂
Sounds like you’re really good at this planning business! I’m still learning that when it comes to managing my home.