Does anyone else have the problem of your dining room table and kitchen counters being a paper magnet?
When I say that I go through the kitchen and dining room clearing off papers at least twenty times a day, I think I might be telling a fib. It has got to be more than that!
Before school the book bags are cleaned out one more time... Papers fly! It's like they magically recreate over night.
Go and retrieve the mail. Quickly glance through it... Oh no! Kris is pulling over the Christmas tree! and there it continues to lay.
Dyl comes home and pulls out his homework and weekly mail folder. Here comes a stack of papers to be put somewhere.
Go to make dinner. Can't find the right recipe! Papers, cookbooks and recipe cards litter the table and counters.
Andy comes home. "Look babe! A paycheck!" and there it sits on the counter.
The Problem:
It is uncomfortable and hard work to make dinner and eat dinner on a pile of paperwork. If the paperwork sits there at our house, it gives me an easy excuse to not cook and not serve my family dinner.
I am also a huge believer in clutter making you feel uncomfortable. It's aggrivating when you clear a spot for dinner and bump into a pile of paper and it goes flying to the floor.
The Solution That Works For Us:
I am not good with paper. I hate to file. I hate to stack. I just cannot stand paper. After trying every idea people offered, I went to Staples and bought a tote (This can be a tote from ANY store.. ) It looks kinda like this:
I have a tote for "Mommy and Daddy" and a tote for "Dyl". When my other kids are older and have a lot of paper come home, I will get a tote for them as well. I just toss all the papers into that tote. EVERY paper goes in there. That way when I am looking for a specific thing, I just go to the tote which pertains to the thing I am trying to locate. Every week or so, I go through the tote and throw out unneeded or "junk" mail and thin it down as I go through. At the end of the month, I put all the paper work from the tote into either a smaller tote or a big ziploc and put the month and the year on it.
Now is this the most organized method of storing paperwork? Nope but it works for us!
The challenge for Wednesday and Thursday is to find an effective way to store paperwork that isn't on the kitchen table or the counters!
People can always use suggestions and I LOVE hearing what works for other people! So... What works for you when it comes to paper?
Happy De-Papering!
