I know – many of you are going to read this and think I am a little crazy, but with three kids, and all the paper work that comes along with doctors, schools and my home office – I have boxes of papers Everywhere.
I finally have had enough. Every time I want to look for something that I need to send to the mortgage company, or the my husband wants to see that one bill that was paid two months ago I get lost in mounds of paperwork. I am organized, by month or by box that is. I always said I would get to it, and this past week I did!
Where to start
This may sound like an all day task, and to some people it may be – depending on how long it has actually been since you have gone through all of your loose piles of paper work. Mine has only been about a year, the last time I needed all my receipts and goodies for tax season I would imagine.
I now was on my way to the local discount store. I found four plastic boxes with lids- about the size of your desk pad and about a foot or so high. Any kind of plastic box with fold down lids or the snap on lids work great. I did by colored boxes for this project, and the clear see through ones work if you prefer. Now I am on my way to ‘get started’ while I still have the energy!
What a mess
I took over my living room. I went to my walk in closet, took out all the bags, piles, and ‘things’ that didn’t belong as far as paper work were concerned. Then, I had to go to the kitchen cupboards. Again, I took to the living room all of the paper work that was paid, past school papers, photos – all of it. Then I went to the dreaded attic. I brought down the green garbage bag full of papers I have been stashing from everything. You know, it is when I would get tired of seeing all the papers in my bedroom, kitchen, closet – I would toss them all in a bag, toss the bag up the stairs in the attic and smile thinking I had done something for the day.
Well, I now had all of these piles of ‘stuff’ all over my floor. My husband laughed at me, the kids tried to grab all types of pictures and drawings from past months and ‘rediscover’ what things they had done before. I started by pulling all of the photos, negatives, school pictures, and photo frames and putting them into one pile. This seemed like an easy task in itself. I put all of the photos, frames, and negative into a dark box. I put them into a dark box just in case I ever had sunlight hit them for a long period of time they would not be faded. I also used a box that had a snap tight lid on them in case I ever had moisture in my attic from the extreme heat and cold that my area gets. I have future expectations of going over all my old photos and putting them into some type of order. While I had my photos out though I did grab as many as I recognized and put dates on them. I could not believe how much the kids (now eight and thirteen) had changed in just one year.
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