I wrote about the benefits of creating a couch-based office a little over a year ago, but I received such positive feedback that I thought I’d write about it again because the problem of paper clutter is so insidious. It seems to come out of the ground like geysers in Yellowstone National Park—endless, constant, and forever. And like Old Faithful in Yellowstone, the largest geyser in most home offices is the desk.
It’s a rare person who keeps a constantly neat and tidy desk, despite the many organizational experts who tell us to clean them off every night. Who really does this? Most of us are riddled with guilt that we don’t. In fact, desks are often a major source of stress because of a simple physics type rule: Horizontal surfaces attract clutter. The bigger the surface, the more clutter it attracts.
And do you know what those paper geysers cost you? I’ll never forget reading in the Wall Street Journal several years ago that the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks a year searching for missing information in disorganized files and desktop piles. Six weeks!! Imagine if they had that time back to do what they actually love and enjoy.
In this article, I’m going to show you how you can rid yourself of huge amounts of paper clutter, and therefore save yourself tons of time. Be forewarned, you have to be willing to think way outside the box for this one. I did, and I love the results. Let me tell you what I did and how you can do the same, and free yourself from hours and hours of stress and wasted time and energy.
Until a year or so ago, I had a big, beautiful, U-shaped desk built in my home office because, like most people, I thought bigger was better—more room to spread out, right?
Wrong. More desk space means more room for piles of paper. It’s just too darn easy to drop papers on a big, flat surface. So I know about the stress people feel when walking by such a desk. It’s awful, and it’s the kind of stress I can do without, thank you.
I originally wrote about my very radical solution to this problem in November 2005, but I have fine-tuned my system so much that I want to share my new tips and tools with you.
Granted, my deskless solution really only works for the average home office. It would be pretty difficult to do this elsewhere. But whether you work at home or in an office building, and no matter what you do for a living, I hope you take the time to read this because you’ll surely find a tip or two that will help you reduce your paper clutter, and, in so doing, save you hours of time.
Here are the elements that will help you get rid of trainloads of paper clutter, and make your life much, much easier in the process.
A laptop computer is key to creating a deskless office. A few years ago, I needed to replace my original desktop computer, so I decided to purchase a laptop (Apple PowerBook G4), which opened my eyes to the wonders of deskless working. At first, still assuming I needed a desk, I thought I’d just set up my laptop on my desk and occasionally use it elsewhere. Instead, I kept finding myself using my laptop while lounging on my comfy living room couch. After months and months, I found that I almost never sat at my desk while using my laptop.
Once I realized that I was no longer using my desk for anything other than piles of paper and other stuff, I decided it had to go. I sold it on Craigslist.com.
And where did I put everything that was previously in or on my desk? Here’s what I bought to replace it:
Rolling cart. I went to an organizing store called Storables (www.storables.com) and bought a small rolling cart with drawers to use as my “desk.” This is where I store any items that I used to keep in my desk, such as plain paper, stamps, paper clips, scissors, tape, and extra pens and pencils. For these little items, I bought a couple of small plastic drawer organizers and put them in the top two wire drawers. This little cart takes up a very small amount of space, it’s easy to use, and it rolls around if you want to put it somewhere else. The surface is small, so I simply can’t pile it full of papers. Everything is right there and takes no more than one second to find.
If you live in an area that has a Storables store, I recommend purchasing the rolling cart I have since you can customize the height, and number and size of the baskets, at no extra charge. You also can buy similar rolling carts at other home stores or even Ikea, but you need to assemble Ikea furniture yourself and the quality isn’t as good.
Rolling cart for electronic equipment. At Storables, I also bought a small, two-shelf wire rolling cart. This holds my cable modem, wi-fi hookup, and phone cradle. You can find similar pieces at other home stores, too.
Exotic basket for current projects. What should you do with current projects you’re working on? Here’s how I keep them organized.
Because most of my work is done in my living room, I went to an import store and found a pretty little basket with handles that fits well with my living room décor. I use this for the papers I’m currently working on. I also have a small, lidded box that I put inside the basket, and that holds my pens, pencils, and any small, miscellaneous office supplies that I use regularly. I purposely kept the basket size fairly small so I’d be forced to clean it out regularly.
Whenever I’m finished with a project, I recycle the papers. Also, since the basket is a very portable size and has handles, I can instantly pick it up and put it on a shelf when company is coming. Plus, I can clean my “office” in a nanosecond by simply throwing any miscellaneous papers in this basket whenever I need to. This saves me at least two hours a week of cleaning and organizing time. I only have to throw things in the basket, rather than try to clean up an entire desk or office.
Wall magazine rack. What about the reports, newsletters, or brochures that come in the mail that I want to read, but I’m not ready to deal with the minute they come in the door? I bought a little three-tiered magazine rack for my wall where I can temporarily park these. Before, they used to land on the dining room table or on my desk, when I had one.
The rack is not too big, so I have to clear it out regularly. You want to be sure that whatever storage you have is not very large. That forces you to keep it fresh. Otherwise, you’ll get overwhelmed. You can get these racks at any home, storage, or office supply store.
Calendar. If you use electronic calendars, you can skip this section.
I still like paper calendars, so I used to have a big one on my office wall that showed a month at a time. But without an office, I needed to find a calendar that fit into my import store basket.
I discovered a perfect-sized calendar at Barnes & Noble. It’s from American Greetings DateWorks, and mine is called “Be as you are,” 18-Month Weekly Planner. I suggest that you go to any book or office supply store and find a calendar that suits your needs—or go electronic.
Bookshelves. I left the built-in bookshelves in my office and I use them to store books and other miscellaneous office equipment, such as my fax machine and printer. I also purged a load of my books, getting rid of everything that took me backwards or that I no longer use or love. My lateral file cabinet (see below) fits under my bookshelves, and my rolling carts fit right next to the shelves. The rest of the room is wide open.
File cabinet. My guess is you don’t need or use all the papers you have. So now is the time to get rid of the paper clutter that’s bogging you down. I suggest that you set your timer for 30 minutes tonight and get started going through your files and purging what you don’t need.
Have an empty paper bag next to you and recycle or shred any papers you don’t absolutely need. Do this every night, or at least three nights a week, until you’ve purged all unnecessary papers. You’ll feel like you just lost 100 pounds.
Once you get rid of all of these old papers, you’ll no longer have to spend 30 minutes a night purging and organizing papers! How much time will you save yourself? If you spend 30 minutes a night now, and it takes you a full week to do the job, you’ll save yourself over 3 1/2 hours of time! See how much of your precious time goes to fooling with paper?
When I got rid of my home office, I pared down to one, two-drawer lateral file cabinet. It was pretty easy to clean out my other two-drawer file cabinet because I use the Internet now for most of my research, and I’m guessing you do, too. I sold the one I cleaned out on Craigslist.com. Most of the papers in that cabinet were outdated and unnecessary.
I not only purge my files regularly, but at the end of every year I clean out my bank statements, credit card statements, and all receipts, and I put them in a box labeled with the tax year. I store these in my basement for six years, which is what the IRS requires. This keeps my IRS records easy to find and my file cabinet clean.
Along with doing my regular file purges, I make sure my files are organized and streamlined. This ensures no headaches and no wasted time. Here’s how I organize my files now:
- Bills to pay. Every time a bill comes in the door, I drop it in this file, which is first in the filing cabinet—therefore, easy to find. When I’m ready to pay bills, I simply pull out the file and pay online. (See the May 2005 issue of Simple Living to read my online banking article. Just visit the online archive at www.simpleliving.com.)
- Credit card statements. I only have one credit card—and you should too, unless you run a business and have a card for business expenses, too. I put my monthly statements in this file. I use them at the end of the year to pull out deductions for tax time. I immediately put my monthly statements in this file, rather than in my “bills to pay” file, because I pay my credit card online, and I recommend that you pay online, too.
- Bank accounts. I have a separate file for each bank account, which makes it easy when a statement comes in. I just pop it into that file.
- Investments. Set up a separate file for each investment—IRA, real estate, etc.
- Insurance. I have one file for each type of insurance—homeowner’s, auto, and health.
- Contractors. I’m always collecting cards for house painters, plumbers, electricians, and handymen, so I put them all in this file. They’re easy to find when I need them.
- Automobile. I keep all auto records here.
- Receipts. When I have paid a bill, or when I buy something, I put the receipts in this file. It’s good to hang on to these for IRS records.
- Health records. Any important health records of mine go here.
- Kid files. I have a file for each of my kids. These are subdivided into health, school, etc.
- Hot projects. Any current projects go here. For instance, if I’m landscaping and collecting pictures of yards and gardens, I’ll drop them into this file. When the project is finished, I purge all the papers.
- Home file. I keep home ownership papers here.
- Legal files. Any legal papers you have should be kept in their own file.
- Business files. If you run a home-based business, and you have a two-drawer lateral file cabinet, keep one drawer for personal files and one for business files, if at all possible. Think very hard about how many files you really need for your home-based business. When is the last time you looked in those files?
Sure, if you’re an accountant, attorney, psychotherapist, or someone with clients who require files, then by all means, keep the current files in your cabinet. You may need a larger cabinet if you have a lot of clients. Otherwise, you know if your files are mandatory or not. Most of mine were not, since the Internet is so much more up-to-date for research.
Once your files are so beautifully organized, your goal is to continually streamline so you have as little paper clutter as possible. Think twice before picking up any piece of paper. Here’s the rule: When you are about to pick something up—from a business card to a free brochure—ask yourself this incredibly important question:
“Where will I put this piece of paper the very second that I walk in my front door?”
If you don’t have a ready place, and you don’t absolutely need this piece of paper, then don’t pick it up. Almost everything you need is online. Paper piles turn into huge time suckers! So don’t generate the stuff. Keep only what you must have, and nothing else. When you are finished reading something, toss or recycle it.
I’ve mentioned this story before, but it bears repeating here. I once went to a client’s home to help her get organized. She wanted to start with her office, which was full of piles and bags of papers. Interestingly, one of those piles consisted of articles about getting organized! She planned to read them and follow through on the suggestions, but, as it always does, life got in the way and these became yet another pile of paper clutter!
This woman was experiencing an enormous amount of stress over her home office. She was so overwhelmed she didn’t know where to start. She spent hours and hours trying to sort through everything, but always gave up because there was so much paper and she didn’t know what to do with it all.
Amazing, isn’t it? So if you go to an evening class and get handouts or grab a free brochure, do not bring them home! If you must, then time how long it stays around your house. If you haven’t read it in 30 days, toss or recycle it.
This is a big—huge, giant—step you can take if you want to reduce the amount of paper clutter you have. When my desktop computer was hooked up to my printer, I found I was always printing papers for one reason or another because I thought I needed to.
Consequently, I was continually adding more and more paper clutter to my life because I had to do something with every piece of paper I printed out—read it, sort it, file it, recycle it, think about it. Every single piece of paper you print out causes you to use a good two to three minutes at minimum to figure out what to do with it. Multiply two to three minutes by the enormous amount of paper that comes into your life, and you can see where huge amounts of your time go.
A lot of this time loss is unnecessary. And you’ll find this out if you do what I now do. I store my printer on a bookshelf, and when I want to print something from my laptop, it’s enough of a hassle that I think twice before I print anything. Now I hardly ever print anymore. I have saved myself at least an hour a week because I no longer fool with all of this paper.
How do I manage? First, I don’t print out cute, inspirational, or political articles that friends send. Somehow I’d always come across a few of these things that I used to think I needed to print out so I could post them somewhere and be inspired. Who was I kidding? All they ever did was add to my paper clutter, and no doubt they are adding to yours, too. So stop printing this stuff.
Second, as a writer, I’m always interviewing people and typing interview notes on my computer. In the past, when it was easy to print, I always printed out the interview so I could have it sitting next to my computer as I turned it into an article.
No more. Now I just put up two screens on my computer—the interview notes and the blank document. I look at the notes and start typing, scrolling as I go.
Think about why you typically print paper and ask yourself if you can do what I do to reduce your paper clutter.If you decide to go my route and print less, and what you have on your computer is something you need to save (and be sure to ask yourself if you really need to save it), then make sure to back up your computer regularly.
If you want to purchase a wireless printer, I suggest that you hold off on buying one until you’ve gotten out of the printing addiction first. Otherwise, you’ll be back to your same old tricks, burying yourself in mounds of unnecessary paper clutter. |