Everything that comes into our house seems to end up on the kitchen bench or kitchen table. I'm sick of how messy this looks. I obviously need to buy something to store incoming and needed stuff that sits around and find a better place than the kitchen bench.
At the moment the assortment of stuff includes:
Mail
Fuel vouchers
Keys
DHs work phone
Childcare notes
Doctors scripts
Various letters that need to be posted/responded to
Some DVDS from the library
A book DD1 needs repaired
There's more, but I haven't dug down that far.....
Anyway, I need something more organised and better looking to do with this stuff. I want a clear kitchen bench!
I just tidied my pile a little by putting it all into a document tray! And I'm trying to go through it more often and each time make myself get rid of 2 or 3 things - pay the bill or file the letter... would love to hear what others do too. Drives me nuts.
ETA: oh, I've also found new homes for a few things that kept cropping up in the pile again and again. There's a clip on the wall with bills 'to pay', the scripts now tuck in next to the basket that contains the medicines.... has helped a bit to reduce the pile.
I reckon some of those magnetised peg/clip things for the fridge would work for some of those things... And if they are not needed regularly... put the medication scripts in your medicine basket/box/cupboard or wherever you put them...
I WISH I paid things and filed them iimmediately... I reckon that would solve half of my "piles problem"
Bills go on fridge.
Scripts go in med basket
Childcare receipts filed/bills on fridge
Car keys in car
Phone next to my bed
DVDs on the tv cabinet
Repair book - desk
My benches and table are clear... Don't ask what my desk looks like tho lol
I put the bills on the fridge, and pay them hopefully before they are due, write the receipt number on them (I do internet banking for everything) and the date and the amount paid, then I put it in a shoebox and hide it in a cupboard. Once the shoebox is full, I have a big folder in the garage that is split into different sections, take out any bills that are over 3 months old and shred them, and any credit card statements over 6 months old and shred them - and put the recently paid ones in.
We have a hook in our pantry up high that holds our car keys so the kids can't get them and unlock the car, or press the button to lift up the garage door (yes they did this)
We have a little dish that holds our wallets, sunnies, and anything else we usually need to go out. Phone is usually on me at all times, unless its on the charger.
Any notes from schools (no childcare here, just primary and kindy) if they are important are kept on the fridge, otherwise thrown out, or if they are good stuff about the kids, I keep them up the top of their wardrobe away from my eyesight so I don't have to see mess LOL
Basically anything that needs to be attended to goes either on the fridge or next to the dish with the wallets. My bench is pretty clear these days, and I'm trying to be more organised.
I hear you, my kitchen bench is the house dumping ground and it really annoys me! When I am organised we make good use of our filing cabinet and most paperwork type things have a home in there. Scripts go in our medicine box in our ensuite. Bills go in our cash box inside their corresponding envelope (we use cash so have envelopes for each bill etc) when they are paid they get put into a document tray.
Mail
- Goes on the coffee table,and is opened and dealt with after dinner.
Fuel vouchers
- live in the car, or in wallet - so that they're not forgotten when purchasing fuel!
Keys
- we have a little cheap blue tub which DH's keys, phone and wallet live in, and it lives on the breakfast bar
DHs work phone
- see above
Childcare notes
- read and then filed
Doctors scripts
- my bedside drawer
Various letters that need to be posted/responded to
- study desk or in my diary- same goes for bills, etc.
Some DVDS from the library
- on top of the DVD player, or in my handbag if we're going to return them the next day
A book DD1 needs repaired
- yeah, they live on the bench! But ideally, they'd get fixed and put on the bookshelf - it would take me 2 minutes to fix it, and I'm sure over the past month I've spent more than 2 minutes moving it out of my way... !
Mail : left on bench until opened; bills put on desk until payed then filed away, junk in the bin, invites or cards go on fridge or buffet.
Fuel vouchers : either on fridge or bull clip hanging on keys hooks
Keys : we have a bowl on hall table for keys and glasses
DHs work phone : bedside table or dining table
Childcare notes : on desk until read, then either filed away or thrown out
Doctors scripts : in bedside drawers
Various letters that need to be posted/responded to : on desk
Wallets: go in drawer of hall table
Books for repair : go on desk
Catalogues (ie Coles etc) on dining table til read then recycled.
I want (neeeeeeeed) one of these systems. They are from Pottery Barn - but the Australian store doesn't have them yet I would mount it on the wall next to my kitchen bench! WallOrgPB.jpg
You have asked the million dollar question! We struggle with this (as I'm sure many families do) but here is what we have tried to do to tame the tide of paper:
I've tried to create a "station" adjacent to the kitchen, since that's where I usually go when I first walk in the house and when I'm "doing stuff". This is a waist-high shelf with calendar, pens, sorting baskets, calendar for noting dates.
Mail - I've put a letter stand next to the phone. All incoming mail goes there.
Once the mail is opened, bills go into the "bill-paying folder".
Things that need actioning go into the "action" tray (often look at it on Sunday night because we have an easy/early tea that night).
Things that need to be filed go into the "filing" tray.
School/childcare notes have their own in-tray (because otherwise they get lost).
Anything that is read-once goes straight into the recycling bin (with all the envelopes) straight away.
Dates, etc are recorded onto the family calendar ASAP + my phone (or I never remember).
Other paper trails in this house include:
Art work - we have a pin board for the very best pieces only - these are rotated, as new ones come in I take others down. I have a tub on top of DD's wardrobe where I keep the best pieces, dated. This is a bit hoardy I know, but it's self limiting because it's a small tub so there is a limit on the work that can be stored, and DD has a real flair for art so I think it's appropriate to do this for her.
Medicine scripts - live in the medicine cupboard clipped to the others.
Receipts - I keep a dump box @ the station. Every so often I go through and outsort ones needed for tax (have own box in study) and any that are needed (eg for warranties) go into a tub where we keep all the instruction manuals, warranty details.
Library books/DVDs etc all have their own shelf so it's easy to grab them when it's time to take them back.
The filing cabinet it pretty much the last stop on the paper trail, we keep (in categorised files) anything that might need referring to long term. eg, we keep bills so we can track our own usage, medical records, certificates, school reports, etc. DH tends to file pretty much everything (because he can't be assed working out if it really needs to be kept or not) but every so often i go through the files and cull.
Other tips:
We're in the process of changing our pinboard over for a white board. The pinboard was being abused by family members pinning any old bits of paper (useful & useless) in no particular order. DH being the worst offender.
Reduce the amount of paper coming in, if you can. Eg, sign up for electronic newsletters from school, stick a no-junk sticker on your mail box, unsubscribe from catalogue mail-outs or get them electronically.
The trick is to go through every so often and discard whatever you can, over and above your daily/weekly process.
Anything I need to keep for a while, eg for tax, I send to a service called Shoeboxed (note: I have no financial interest in this service, no link though) to have it scanned and stored online. Same with bills once I have paid them or scheduled payment.
How does that work, Liminal? Do you post things to them? Singly or in batches? And do they just scan it straight up, or do they assign tags (eg, date, nature of thing, subject matter)? How long does it take to retrieve it? What sort of cost is involved?
You post batches of things to them (you can forward email receipts too). They scan and do some data entry: the name of the biller and the total owing and some other things so you can search later. Cheapest plan seems to be $20 a month so sadly not very cheap. It's aimed more at businesses but we were really losing control of our filing so we went with it. There's a free plan but only if you upload scans yourself, they won't process the postal batches.
It takes about a week for a scanned batch to be online. After that it just invokes logging into their website, searching, and downloading the PDF you need. I guess 30 seconds?
Where do you store incoming paperwork?
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I would mount it on the wall next to my kitchen bench!
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