Organize More

If you are like most people, you are drowning in a sea of paper. We are bombarded with paper all day long, from bills and advertising supplements, to junk mail and recipe clippings.

Paper clutter can quickly bring chaos into our homes. Bills get paid late because we can’t find them. The checkbook doesn’t get balanced because the bank statement has gone missing. We missed Aunt Millies’ 70th birthday party because we misplaced the invitatiion. Even the most organized person in the world can quickly get buried in paper if they don’t remain vigilant.

My new filing system uses a scanner and shredder instead of manila folders. Chances are, if you have a home office, you have an "all-in-one" printer that includes a scanner. If you don’t, consider buying one, and every home should own a shredder in this age of "identity theft". Both are relatively inexpensive these days.

When you have a scanner set up, have read the instructions, and know that its working properly, you can begin your paper purge. As much as possible, scan in black and white, as color scans tend to take up a lot more space on your computer.

If you don’t already do so, make sure that you are backing up your hard drive on a regular basis. You can buy a drive and set-it to automatically back-up daily, weekly, or for any time period. There are also some web based programs that you can buy into. As you about to put your entire world into electronic media, it is prudent that it be backed up.

First, put all unfiled paper that needs scanning into a box. Now, put the box aside for the moment. That box gets done last so that the scanned documents can be put directly into the electronic file where they belong. No use wasting time by filing all of that paper first.

The hardest part of this process is creating an organized electronic filing system. The best rule to follow is “keep it simple”. Create a directory for your scanned files, and then fill it with folders labeled the same as your paper files (ie. taxes2008, taxes2009, receipts2008, charitablecontributions2009, gasbills2009, cablebills2008, etc.) Also create a system for naming each scanned document. You may want to name them according to the company, year and month. For my January, 2008, Verizon bill I used Ver_2008_01 for the scanned document. This same system works well for receipts for purchases. For flowers bought at Lowes in June, 2007, I use Lowes_2007_06.

It is good to use underscores to separate sections of the document instead of spaces. Spaces have a tendency to get mucked up in the conversion process.

Here's a quick tip: If you have a lot of small receipts from the same vendor, scan them all together into one document saving file space.

That’s it. It is really that easy.

Now, start your new electronic system by pulling out one file folder at a time. When all of the relevant paper is scanned, shred the folder and its contents and start on the next folder. This system works great for recipes and magazine clippings. You can also scan all of your old family photos for easy sharing, and pack the old photo albums in the attic.

Once you get started purging your paper, you very well may come up with lots of other creative ideas… please share them with us as they pop up.