File It!

Organization 101. I'm taking baby steps and my first step last week was to organize my paperwork. All of it! I have small piles of paper all over it seems like because I don't know what to do with it and I have other places where paper is stashed because it seemed like a good place to put it at the time or there wasn't anywhere else that it could call home. It drove me crazy!

So last week I set out to get all my paper corralled in a file box. I started with a plan. Something I had never tried before! I wanted a limited number of categories, but I wanted them to be meaningful so here's what I came up with:
Red Folders are Active Files
Yellow Folders are Personal files
Green Folders are Home and Property
Blue Folders are Financial
Purple folders are Taxes and Legal Papers

Then I decided what would go in each category. For example the active folders contain to do cards, gift cards, unopened mail, tickler files with a folder for each month - stuff like that. The Active folders should be reviewed on a weekly basis. Personal files have notes, decorating clippings I want to keep, goals and that kind of stuff. Home and Property has several folders that contain warranty and user guides, a home inventory file, bank loan papers, etc. Financial folders contain a folder that has each month and I drop all receipts for the month in it. And finally the Taxes and Legal Papers have copies of wills, estate papers and our annual taxes. Stuff like that.

I don't know that it's a perfect system, but here's what I do know. If you ask me to find a paper related to something and it's filed, I know where it is. I'm still finding a few of my paper stashes around and filing them has been really quick and not something so much dread.

That in itself feels good. and you wanna know a secret - it's one of those things that I sneak peeks at when I need some motivation.

Next up - the bathroom/hall cupboard.