Pretty much everyone dislikes paper clutter and dealing with it. Decluttering paper is tedious work because while most of it can be discarded some are very important and must be kept.
Because of this, many of us tend to err on the side of caution, making sure no important paper is lost. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to so much paper that it becomes hard to find the important ones when they are needed.
The important few get lost among the ‘should have already been recycled’ many.
Paper clutter, like all clutter, affects our mental health as well. It is hard to relax if you’re not quite sure that everything that needs to be taken care of has been taken care of.
This constant low-grade stress taxes our brains and bodies. It affects our ability to concentrate, reduces our working memory and so much more.
Whether your papers fit in a filing cabinet or overflow into your garage, it can be daunting to tackle it.
Marie Kondo starts the paper category in her book The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up with the “Rule of thumb - discard everything.” I loved that title the moment I read it! Discard everything?! That can’t be right… To me, her approach was liberating and refreshing but I know some of us to find the approach scary.
We’re used to placing importance on papers.
What Kondo recommends us to do is to dispose of anything that is NOT
Currently in use
Needed for a limited period of time
Must be kept indefinitely
CURRENTLY IN USE
You should have a spot at your home for papers that are currently in use: a magazine you want to read, an offer you want to take an advantage of, a note from school/doctor, etc.
It doesn’t matter what type of filing system you use for these papers as long as they always come to this spot and nowhere else. After you have read the paper decide if you can discard it or need to file it.
Some of us might find it helpful to dedicate a certain day and time of the week to always going through these types of papers. Others may find they can keep up with it at their own pace, dealing with the papers as they come in as soon as they have an opportunity to do so. Consider which type of person you are.
Would you rather deal with papers daily as they come in or would you rather get it off your mind and set yourself a calendar reminder to go through it once a week?
NEEDED FOR A LIMITED PERIOD OF TIME
A great example of this category is tax papers. We all get them, they are important, and they need to be kept for a limited (although extended) period of time.
According to IRS, we need to keep tax records, along with any supporting documents, for a minimum of 3 years.
If you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities (including loser stocks or bonds) or a bad debt, then keep tax records for 7 years. There are very few reasons why you’d need to hold on to tax papers longer than that.
Other than tax papers the papers that are needed for a limited period of time could include: proof of purchase for items that have a warranty as long as they are under warranty, course material you need to complete a course, school schedule for the semester, etc.
These papers should be filed but they shouldn’t stay in your filing system indefinitely.
Again, we should consider if we are able to remember to discard these papers when they are no longer needed or if we would benefit from a monthly/biannual/annual reminder on our calendar to go through these types of papers.
MUST BE KEPT INDEFINITELY
Then there are papers that we must keep indefinitely: birth/marriage certificates, social security cards, wills, inheritance documents, legal filings, etc.
These are the papers we want to file. There is no need to create many subcategories under your filed paper. The most important thing is that you know where your important papers are when you need them and that you trust them to be safe. They could be in a filing cabinet, a safe, or even a safe deposit box in a bank.
More and more of the papers are already received electronically and can be saved digitally. If you really want to minimize the amount of paper in your home you can also scan and store digitally paper that came through the snail mail, either on your own drives or on cloud-based solutions.
As you might have noticed, in the KonMari Method, the paper category does not include old letters, diaries, or your kids’ artwork. Leave all that for later (sentimental category)! For now, just tackle the paper that brings you no joy and only keep what you must.
Feel the weight of all that paper coming off your shoulders, both literally and figuratively. Then relax knowing that all your papers are in order!