The Two Rules for Getting Rid of Paper Clutter for Good!

It’s Day 9 of the 30 Days to Less of a Hot Mess Challenge! We’re clearing clutter, reorganizing and letting in fresh air to build a home we love. New here? You may want to begin at the start. Affiliate links used for your convenience.

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Okay, so I started this project many, many months ago.

I fondly remember opening this chapter of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and thinking it would be the biggest challenge of my decluttering journey.

That was a year ago. (Read about it here.)

Little did I know it would bring my decluttering to a dead stop.

Over the past 12 months, I sorted and decluttered paper here and there, knowing it was the step the book recommended. But I never really got a handle on it. The problem was I wasn’t doing it the right way. I was trying to declutter while the papers were still tucked in the filing cabinets.

It all felt far too overwhelming. I wasn’t sure I would ever conquer the paper clutter dragon.

You see, I have long wanted to get rid of this old, brown filing cabinet.

The old cabinet got to go! How to Eliminate Paper Clutter for Good! | 30 days to Less of a Hot Mess

My husband owned it before we got married, and it has served us well. At one point it was stuffed to overflowing, but I whittled down the contents until the papers filled just one drawer. The other drawer held printer paper, ink and envelopes.

My favorite desk from Ballard Designs... Love the double use of the space as desk and storage!

Sneak peek of my newly organized office space, which I’m revealing tomorrow.

Then this past year I bought my dream desk from the Ballard’s Design outlet near Atlanta. I picked it because 1) it was white, 2) it was large and 3) the bases double as filing cabinets! Hooray! More desk space and no ugly filing cabinet. It was a winning combo. But I still couldn’t figure out how to sort through my papers and get rid of what I didn’t need.

That changed when I finally took the advice in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and pulled everything out.

A few items you may need to get started:

Inbox – I just got this one and I’m loving it!
Folders for filing
Hanging file system
Pen (my go-to favorites)
Paper shredder (I have this very basic model.)

Rule #1 for Getting Rid of Paper Clutter for Good: Gather Them All in ONE Place!

To make this work, gather the papers from everywhere in your home. Walk through every room and stack them up. Check the laundry room, kitchen, bathroom, kids’ rooms, everywhere!

I emptied the filing cabinets and collected the piles from around the house.

How to Eliminate Paper Clutter for Good! | 30 days to Less of a Hot Mess

This stack was tiny compared with what I started with last year! I had multiple boxes FULL of paperwork to sort through!

I made 4 “discard” piles to sort everything into:

keepers
action items
shred
trash

I was ruthless with the “keep” pile. Most papers ended up in the trash or shred piles, thank goodness!

I also kept my planner close by. Whenever something went into the “to do” folder, I wrote it in my planner so it wouldn’t sit there forever.

I loosely followed Marie Kondo’s advice on keeping papers, which boils down to keeping almost nothing except your house deed and a few financial records. She even suggests tossing most owner’s manuals, except perhaps those for your TV, computer and camera.

I wasn’t nearly as strict as she is, but I cut out a lot. I used to store every single owner’s manual in plastic sleeves in large 3-ring binders. Now I’ve let all of that go, and I keep the ones I want in one magazine file. Super simple!

I’ve been working on this for years, and especially for the past 6 months, so if you’re just starting to tackle the paper monster, expect it to be a process.

It will likely take a while. Don’t expect to finish this in a day. If you can’t start right now, put an appointment on your calendar for when you can. Take a long weekend or a few days off in a row to begin wrestling the paper beast.

And it’s OK to take your time! Organizing IS a process, and the journey is worth enjoying because each step brings us closer to less clutter and more breathing room. I’m already tasting a bit of the clutter-free life after working on this for a while, and it’s wonderful! The more I declutter, the more I want to let go of things. By the end, I’ll probably need to circle back to clothing and give more away, because my ideas about what to keep and what to donate have changed so much since then!

Just to give you an idea of what was in my drawers, here are some things I threw away:

Tax returns more than 7 years old.
Home maintenance records from a previous house we sold 5+ years ago
Old medical bills (paid off long ago) and medical receipts
Assorted receipts

A word of caution: you don’t necessarily need to keep or toss all of these. I’m not an accountant or lawyer, so if someone has told you to keep any of them, please follow their advice, not mine. These are simply the choices my husband and I made for our family.

My final file folder categories were:

Keep Long Term: letters confirming closed accounts, loans or mortgages, select health documents, current mortgage papers, marriage and birth certificates, passports, social security cards
Art: I keep my random art collection (worth $10’s of $$’s) safe in the filing cabinet, where it’s less likely to get creased or damaged.
Medical: Each family member has a small folder of essential medical records.
House: Our current home’s maintenance records and HOA information
School: a few important papers from my husband’s work (he’s a teacher) and our daughters’ schools. The most current info simply goes into our Home Organization Binder.

Rule #2 for Getting Rid of Paper Clutter for Good: Only 1 Drop Spot

Another huge piece of this paper decluttering puzzle is this rule for handling new papers that come into your home:

Have 1 place (and ONLY 1 place) for paper as it comes into your home.

I was guilty of letting paper land in too many places. It was fine on the kitchen counter, by the junk drawer, in our command center, on my office desk or even on my dresser in the master bedroom.

Then when company was coming over, I’d shove it all in a box and toss it in the guest bedroom or the bottom of the closet. I’d finally go through it a year or more later. Ugh! So not good!

I finally set up one spot on my desk for paper. It’s more of a bin than anything, and I like that it’s open so I can’t ignore it behind a file folder. Our command center now holds our home organization binder and things we use regularly, so it no longer doubles as a paper sorting station!

I also set up a system for handling papers once they’re in the house. It’s so easy to keep track of everything now! I can jot things down in my planner and toss them, file them right away, or keep them in my to-do folder until I have time for them. I still need to set aside a time each week to deal with these items.

I’m so thankful to have one more item crossed off my decluttering list and a plan in place for tackling papers as they arrive.

Tomorrow we’re talking all things desk and office organization, because I just organized my space and I’m absolutely in love!

The Messy Work: Either start going through your papers or block off time on your calendar to tackle them. You can do it!! It doesn’t need to take you 12 months like it did me!!

Right there in the mess with you, Laura