Paper clutter everywhere...Suggestions?

[lkmiscnet]

This is a sore topic with my DH and he says we live in a wastebasket because of all my bits of paper and magazines everywhere. I don't have a dedicated office, so my office ends up being on the kitchen table, coffee table, kitchen island, computer desk, and all contain my "papers" and reminders written on papers.

I need visual reminders of things, so I write them down on pieces of paper/post it notes. I tried keeping a list on a sheet of paper, but that doesn't work for me, as I need to be able to prioritize my pieces of paper. I've tried it on several occasions and it hasn't worked.

As an example, on my kitchen table now are a carbon monoxide detector and its instructions, as I need to contact the company regarding a problem, a letter from a friend, which is a reminder for me to call her, a few flyers regarding subscription deals for our local paper, which I am evaluating, a few recipes I wanted to make, and a couple of pieces of paper on which two upcoming appts are written on to remind myself, a few veggie seed packets, as I need to plant them, and a couple of houseplant pots, as I need to replant a couple of houseplants and they are visual reminders to me to get it done--though some of this stuff has been visually reminding me for months. I can see why my DH would not be happy with this clutter on our kitchen table and elsewhere.

I seem to accumulate lots of stuff to follow up on and the paper reminders sit out until I get it done, which sometimes takes awhile. If I put it away--out of sight, out of mind.

I am an information hoarder. I am constantly flagging pages in magazines or scribbling things I find on the internet on sticky notes, saving recipes out of magazines, etc. It might be information on some new wrinkle fighting cream that's coming out (so I want the blurb out of the magazine saved for future reference so I can buy it), a great ab workout, a great tip on removing a stain, or I'm researching car seats, so I make notes on a piece of paper about various seats and their features, or it might be a sale flyer for a store, or a blurb on some new gizmo I want to read up on, and on and on...

I've tried jotting things down in a notebook, but sometimes having the full article or blurb from a magazine gives you all the useful background information, so I end up wanting to keep the whole page.

I have several filing cabinets, which have become full to capacity and once something is filed away, I never think to look back at it, so that doesn't work for me and I can't not save stuff.

I have a stack of magazines with post it flags on various topics, which I typically either copy (so I can pass along the magazine) or scan, but when I scan, I have so much stuff on my computer, that it goes into a black hole. I suppose that's better than having physical paper, at least my DH would agree.

I am very visual and need reminders in front of me to jog my memory.

My mother tells me that everything is on the internet, but again, without having read about something in a magazine, I would not have known about it and so would not have known about even looking for it on the internet. I have hundreds of sites bookmarked anyway.

So, I'm wondering how everyone maintains their home and where does all their paper stuff go. I know that I save more "paper" than a typical person, but I could use some suggestions on how to handle this and keep the peace with my DH.

Ironically, I'll have to remind myself to look at the responses by writing a note to myself to check out this site.

[sunnysandiegan]

I used to be like you. With much kindness and gentleness, I suggest you work from the inside out. Ask yourself why you believe you have to have things a certain way, etc. Once you recognize and release your fears/concerns/worries/etc, you'll find the symptoms disappear. It takes time, but it will happen.

Meanwhile, to keep peace while you are figuring things out, find a small table or desk and corral it all there. Rearrange your home to make it fit in a helpful spot. Rearrange your day to make time to go to that table/desk and do one thing.

Over time, I have released 90% of the paper/information collecting tendencies. We have one tray that holds all incoming paper of ANY kind and I sit down with it once a week.

The last 10% follows me wherever I am spending most of my time. Right this very minute, I have a small pile of papers on the bookcase next to me. I have been sitting in the recliner in the living room lately. Last night, I had planned to read over the election paperwork (primaries are next Tuesday) and got involved in finding summer activities for the family. There are now a dozen items related to those two topics on the bookcase. When I get up out of this chair, I will grab the whole stack and drop it into the tray. If I need it, I know where to get it. If I forget, it'll still be there next week when I take care of the tray again.

[Alyantavid]

I'd start with a calendar. Now, I have several because I can't fit everything on one, but they're in places that work for us. The calendar with meal plans is on the fridge with a post it attached to write down things we need from the store. Dh's work schedule is right beside the computer. We have another one on the other side of the computer with a pocket where we keep paid bills for each month. At the end of the month, they go in a big accordion file, by month. When I put a new month's stuff in, last year's stuff gets tossed. At work, I have everything on one calendar in Outlook, so I can have reminders.

We have a filing cabinet, but it's only got 2 drawers and I try to keep that stuff to a minimum.

Recipes I copy or clip go into a file in the kitchen where I have a binder of recipes, cookbooksand a recipe box.

All the seeds I collect go in a bucket in the cupboard so they're all in one place. I have a notebook for gardening that I keep on top of the filing cabinet in one of those plastic shelf things.

I also have a binder full of pictures from magazines or newspaper clippings I see that I want to keep for future ideas. That's in the filing cabinet as well. If I see something in a magazine, I rip it out and put it in there and then I can get rid of the magazine.

All the reminders, notes home, etc for the kids go on a magnetic board we have up on the wall.

I need visual reminders as well, but I can't stand clutter. So I try to keep my stuff organized but still in sight so it's easy to find.

[IsaFrench]

... am working on that too ...

trying to use binders (started last week)
and a few baskets (the week before that when I tried to categorise what I could ....
for broad categories (if it's too precise it gets too complicated and I can't retrieve it)

+ am trying too to contain "it" within a set space limit I try to assign it
....next step will be sorting out the "time limit" and see if I can make it so that it takes less of my wake up time ....

[laohaire]

You NEED to read:

Getting Things Done

by David Allen

When I say you NEED to read it, I don't say it lightly at all, especially because it irks me no end when my mother says I need to do anything But in this case, this book was made for you. It is a famous book so it should be at your library.

ETA: Just wanted to explain a bit more about the book. First, it's simply a very motivating book. Second, while it's marketed as a book for executives it's about your whole life (even if you're not an exec or even a paid worker) - David Allen is very clear about that. Third, and this is crucial for you, he doesn't try to make you digitize everything (which obviously doesn't work for you). He has a process but that process can fit into YOUR needs, your way of working. So for one person, it could be all digital, and for another, it could be 100% paper. That's why the process is so amazing, because it doesn't try to force you to be someone you're not.

His process is also a solution for your filing cabinets and everything. Maybe I'm overstating it but I just suspect you'll feel the book was written for you.

[cappuccinosmom]

You sound a lot like my brother. When he moved out, my dad took out 15 full garbage bags of paper stuff (with bro's permission) and there was no visible difference. He moved back in and still has masses of paper and information stowed in that small room.

Personally, I don't think there is an organizational method that will make a huge difference if you absolutely cannot give up much of this hard-copy information. I understand the wanting to keep feelings though. I really do. I definitely have tendencies towards anxieties like that, and have things in my basement that I'm still struggling to let go. Oddly, this tendancy is combined with an intolerance for clutter, so I might have stuff stashed but it's usually packed up in boxes and out of sight.

I do think binders might help a lot though. That way you're not keeping an entire magazine when the information you want is contained in a few square inches on a single page. Make binders for the subjects you most commonly save info for--recipes, health/exercise, research, home care. I like the clear binder fillers, that I can slip several magazine articles into and know they will be protected and also easily visible when I open it up.

I also agree with the suggestion to limit your collection to one specific area of the house (and a smallish area). Making the whole home yours for collecting just isn't fair to the rest of the family.

The other thing I would suggest is that if something needs to be done, do it right away. Don't let the carbon monoxide detector sit there one more day. Call them, get your problem dealt with, and put it and the papers away. Get rid of junk mail immediately. If there is mail or paperwork that needs to be dealt with, have one smallish basket that you can put it into and make a weekly habit of sitting down and dealin with everything in it.

ETA: One thing that I have read about hoarding, and which I found true for myself, is that it can be a bit like playing a mental trick on yourself. IE: You feel you need all this stuff and all these reminders because you have overwhelmed yourself with information/stuff. And you still end up with stuff "out of sight, out of mind" because there's only so much available space and thus some things are just going to get buried. It can be a problem when really important things get buried under all the reminders and reminders of reminders. I found that the more I pared down what I had (both IRL and on the computer) and what I was involved in, my mental organization and short-term memory improved, because it just wasn't buried under all that information anymore.

[cappuccinosmom]

The mail just came. At least in our house, a good portion of paper stuff comes in via the postal service.

When it comes, I take 5 minutes to sort it immediately. Otherwise, that's the beginning of a pile. Today there was a pile of stuff for others in the household. I pulled my stuff out and put the rest on the stairs. Of my stuff, two things immediately went in the trash/recycling. One ad, which I simply do not need, and a duplicate magazine. The other magazine, I pulled out of it's packaging--it comes in an envelope along with various additional papers and a return envelope for donations. I know we don't have the money to donate, and I know that every month a new envelope will arrive so I don't need to save this envelope for future donating. Thus, the only part I kept was the magazine itself. When I'm done reading, it will either be recycled or handed to someone else to enjoy. I also got one bill. That immediately went into my finances basket in my room. I don't have to worry about not seeing it and forgetting to pay it, because I weekly check that basket and pay the bills that are due.

Same process yesterday, only we also got that large packet of store circulars. I looked through them, and then chucked the majority. I kept one to make a shopping list, and then got rid of it too.

Making this process a habit, and being ruthless about it, has made a huge difference in the amount of paper stuff that gets past the front door in our house.

[Crayfish]

One suggestion I'd make is "pointers", low-bulk visual reminders that point you to the higher-bulk supporting material. I'd suggest Post-Its, because they're small and neat and will stay in one place.

So, for example, you could:

- Put the carbon monoxide detecter and instructions away and write a Post-It saying "Call about carbon monxoide detector. Detector & instructions stored in laundry room, right top shelf".

- File the wrinkle cream magazine page and write a Post-It that says, "Try Acme wrinkle cream. Ad stored under Magazine Ads 2010, file cabinet."

- Put the pots away and write a Post-It that says, "Re-pot geranium and dahlia. Pots in garage to right of freezer."

And so on. Every day you could make an appointment with yourself to sit down and transform high-bulk reminders into low-bulk ones. You could "punch up" the visual impact of the Post-Its with colored Post-Its, colored pens, stickers, whatever maximizes their visual impact while still minimizing the space that they take up.

You could use the Post-It notes to form rearrangeable lists, by having several heavy, stackable pieces of paper (maybe construction paper or poster board), and sticking the notes to them. When you're working through your day, you could spread out those pieces of paper; when the family starts to come home and needs the coffee table, counters, etc., you could quickly stack them and put them into a specific limited space that's dedicated to your organizational materials. Or if you don't get a chance, they can do it.

The "they can do it" is absolutely critical, IMO. I think that it's very important that the rest of the family have the right to clear _most_ of these spaces. For example, if the kids come home with homework to do, they should have the right to just clear everything off the coffee table and stack it up, without asking, and without your supervision. I don't know if that's the situation now, or if the situation is, "Don't move my papers or I won't be able to find anything!"

You should have some space that's exclusively yours and not to be meddled with - a desk, or a modest-sized table, or a specific four-foot length of counter, or something - but you shouldn't "own" all of the flat spaces in the family areas. That's not fair to everyone else.

I say this as someone who's lived with people with hoarding tendencies. The "don't move my stuff!" demand is more misery-inducing than one would think. Enough repetitions of "Don't use that table; don't use the coffee table; don't use the counter; DON'T TOUCH MY STUFF!!!", over time, can add up to the family hearing, "This house belongs to me and my stuff, and my stuff's needs are paramount. You? You're not all that important. Be grateful that we even let you in."

It doesn't sound like the paper problem is that bad yet, but it's clearly producing problems. You don't want your kids to grow up feeling that their home belonged to the paper first, and you second, and that they were just unwelcome guests. And you don't want your husband to feel that your need to remember to try a recipe is more important than his need to feel that he has a home.

Crayfish

[Crayfish]

Another ramble, this time on priorities.

You mentioned:

"...a few flyers regarding subscription deals for our local paper, which I am evaluating..."

Newspapers are pretty inexpensive. I'd guess that no matter what subscription deal you chose, you wouldn't save more than a few dollars a year. Meaning that it's really not that important. I'd guess that you could just throw all of those flyers away, and keep using whatever subscription plan that you already have, and that would be OK.

Now, that's easy for me to say, and no doubt hard for you to do, or you would have already done it. But it might be worth spending a fair bit of time figuring out why it's hard.

Is it perfectionism? Do you feel obligated to find the _most_ efficient subscription plan for your needs, and are you afraid that if you waste five dollars on the wrong one, you'll feel imperfect and stupid and lower than low?

And the same question applies to the other things. How horrible would it be if you _didn't_ remember to learn about that gizmo? Or try that recipe? If you didn't know how to remove a stain? If you didn't try that wrinkle fighting cream?

I'd guess that the consequences, in all of these cases, would be very near zero, and definitely less than the consequences of maintaining a house in a way that makes your husband unhappy. You may be essentially choosing a _certain_ and substantial bad consequence (an unhappy member of the household), to avoid a _possible_ and usually minor bad consequence. (Spending five dollars more than you needed to, or failing to try a wrinkle cream that probably wasn't all that revolutionary anyway.)

Again, I realize that it's easy for me to say. But I think that it's worth figuring out why you feel driven to pursue these things, more than other people are driven. Do you feel the need to have an encyclopedic set of knowledge, and will you, again, feel stupid and low if you don't? Do you feel the need to be a library of information for others? Do you fear the moment when you realize, "Oh, there was a wrinkle cream... but I can't remember the name and I didn't save the clipping." Are you afraid that if that moment comes, you'll feel like a failure?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't follow any of your interests. I'm saying that it's just not possible to follow up on _every_ interesting piece of information, so it's best to just not save every single one. And I'm suggesting that some of this information hoarding may be driven by fear, rather than interest and enjoyment.

Crayfish

[laurabfig]

Originally Posted by laohaire

You NEED to read:

Getting Things Done

by David Allen

When I say you NEED to read it, I don't say it lightly at all, especially because it irks me no end when my mother says I need to do anything But in this case, this book was made for you. It is a famous book so it should be at your library.

ETA: Just wanted to explain a bit more about the book. First, it's simply a very motivating book. Second, while it's marketed as a book for executives it's about your whole life (even if you're not an exec or even a paid worker) - David Allen is very clear about that. Third, and this is crucial for you, he doesn't try to make you digitize everything (which obviously doesn't work for you). He has a process but that process can fit into YOUR needs, your way of working. So for one person, it could be all digital, and for another, it could be 100% paper. That's why the process is so amazing, because it doesn't try to force you to be someone you're not.

His process is also a solution for your filing cabinets and everything. Maybe I'm overstating it but I just suspect you'll feel the book was written for you.

I STRONGLY second this recommendation. Getting Things Done changed my life and my work patterns. I love this book, and have recommended it to so many people.