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?
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I would mount it on the wall next to my kitchen bench!
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