Transcript Podcast Episode 6: Get Rid of Paper Clutter
Get Rid of Paper Clutter for Good
Wannabe Minimalist Show Transcript Episode 6
00:00 You're listening to the Wannabe Minimalist Show, episode number six. On today's show, we're talking about how to get rid of paper clutter once and for all.
00:09 [music]
00:13 Welcome to the Wannabe Minimalist Show. I'm your host Deanna Yates, and each week on this podcast we will talk about what it really takes to be a minimalist with a family. I believe minimalism is a mindset for how we see stuff, but more importantly, being mindful of the items we let into our lives, homes and relationships. Let's do this!
00:40 Well, hello there. Welcome back to another episode of the Wannabe Minimalist Show. I'm your host, Deanna Yates from LittleGreenBow.com. I am so excited to discuss today's topic as we come to the end of the year. When I reached out and asked you what you wanted to hear about, paper clutter was a highly requested topic and I totally understand why. Paper is one of those things in our lives that never stops. I have an ugly truth to tell you. You will always have to deal with papers coming into your life. There will be mail, school papers, bills, invitations, owner manuals, insurance papers and so on, but the good news is that you can cut down on this paper significantly and better yet just because it comes into your home does not mean that it gets to stay there.
01:28 But, before we get ahead of ourselves, I want to tell you a little bit about our sponsor for today's show, which is Mixbook. Mixbook allows you to create personalized photo gifts that are not only stunning but very easy to put together. If you are looking for personal photo books, calendars and other photo gift ideas, you really need to check out Mixbook. One of my favorite photo gift items is an annual family calendar. Here's the funny thing, it's a paper item that I actually gift to my family, but since it is highly requested, in fact, I was late one year and there was a brief panic that we were not going to do the calendars, I would never consider it clutter. There is good and bad paper and full disclosure, yes I am an affiliate for Mixbook, but that's because they have a great product that I use myself. The quality is fabulous and my family asks for these gifts year after year. This year I'm also working on a family yearbook filled with our best pictures of the year I am so looking forward to the books on our shelves.
02:29 Seeing our amazing family memories and not nonfiction business books is another way I will get the paper clutter out of our home and replace it with meaningful items and moments. So if you are looking for a beautiful way to display your family's cherished memories, I highly recommend that you check out Mixbook. Head on over to LittleGreenBow.com/mixbook. Again, that's LittleGreenBow.com/mixbook - M. I. X. B. O. O. K.
03:01 Alright, let's get back to talking about how to get your paper clutter organized by the end of this year so you can start the new year fresh. First things first though, I want to talk about dealing with everything that comes into your home on a regular basis. Sure. Some people will start with all of the paper clutter you currently have, but I like to flip the script and start with the deluge that you get every single day. Once you have that under control, you can go through the piles that you have hidden throughout your house and clear those away.
03:34 Think about it this way. If you start with the large stacks that you already have hidden somewhere or stacked in a corner, your working with the stuff you've already mentally put somewhere else, there's a reason it's in a pile. It was overwhelming in the first place. Plus, while you're dealing with the past, the new stuff keeps coming in and piling up. Working from a clean slate gets you a win very quickly. You'll be able to take back control and beat the paper before it becomes clutter. Okay, so how do we do that? Well, first you need to have a central place where you keep and deal with the paper that comes into your home. This is where all incoming mail and schoolwork should go for processing. Don't worry. Processing is not as scary as it sounds. It's really just dealing with the stuff in the central place.
04:27 I also include a family calendar for a quick look at your family's to dos and activities. I like to call this your family command center. If you'd like ideas for how to create or update your family command center, I will include a link to a blog post I wrote about this in the show notes. It was a really great topic on things that you need in your command center and ways to update it. If you've already had one in the past that wasn't really working for you, okay. Once you have a central place to deal with your mail, the second thing you need to do is figure out what to do with that mail that comes in every single day. I'm not going to lie, mail is one of the most difficult paper clutter monsters that we have to deal with because it comes in every day and it never stops.
05:10 Now I've gotten to a place where I can batch our mail pickups. We live in a townhouse and so the mail is in a courtyard and not attached to our home or at the end of our driveway. So we have to go out of our way to get it. I don't actually do this on a daily basis, but I used to and you will get to a place where you don't have to do it on a daily basis either if you don't want to. So once a week we pick up our mail and sort it. It's possible because I've set up a lot of our bills to be paperless, pretty much all of them. So most of the items we actually receive in the mail are not time sensitive. So we can get you to this point, you know where you're doing a weekly mail pickup, but that's not where we start to start tackling your daily mail clutter.
05:50 There are five simple steps. First, collect your mail every day. Second, sort your mail immediately when you get in the, it only takes a minute. I promise it's not that hard, but do not leave it in a pile by the front door or on the kitchen counter that will set you up for failure. Three, open all your items like bills, cards, invitations for create a central area where all of your papers will be kept. I love a tiered paper sorter to make this task easier. I'll link to a couple examples in the show notes so that you can get one if you need it, but they're really simple to pick up. And fifth and final is to clear out this that sorter on a weekly basis. By following these steps, you will be able to tackle your mail clutter easily and quickly and it won't feel like a hassle, I promise.
06:39 So now that you know what to do with your mail and where to put it, let's talk about what kinds of mail and paper you will receive on a regular basis. There are four types of mail and paper that will come into your home frequently. First are mail and papers that require an action. Second, are mail and papers to file and keep long term. Third, are mail. And papers that are trash, you will toss, recycle, or shred these items right away. Forth are mail or papers that belonged to someone else. The key here is to process each piece that comes into your home once. That's our goal, to really only touch everything one time. This means that you need a system in place for where you store these papers before you file them and where to hold your items that require an action step. So when I say that you should touch and process each item once that's making that decision as to where it goes.
07:30 Now some people will say that you need to file these items right away and you may get there in the not too distant future. But for now we need to just get these things organized as quickly as possible and as easily as possible. And so for me that means using that tiered paper sorter on one shelf are the action items on another shelf. Are your papers to file. And on that final shelf are your items for someone else.
07:54 So let's go ahead and dive in even further and discuss each of these four types of mail and paper. Okay, mail that requires an action. This may be something like an invitation or a bill. It's a piece of paper that requires you to act in some way. My advice here is to open bills and invitations. Any envelope that comes in that's not junk mail, open it right away. Keep the one piece of paper that you need and toss the envelopes, extra items, and you can even recycle that return envelope if you'll be paying or responding online. Other items you might place in your action folder or bin might be something you want to do. So for instance, let's say you found a recipe in a magazine you cut out to try, or there was an ad for a new place in town to check out. These pieces of paper would be placed in your action category because you want to do something at a later date based on this piece of paper. So the trick here is to make sure that you actually do it. Don't let these items sit in the action bin forever. That really dilutes the purpose of the action items and you will get out of the habit of completing those tasks because your brain will start to associate that bin with things to put off.
09:09 If you're clearing that out and doing the items in that action, then your brain will get into the habit of knowing that that means there is something to take care of. Okay. Now I want to offer you some bonus tips. I know some of you like to get extra credit and this is where that comes in. The point of today's episode is to give you a way to deal with your paper clutter. Now these are the things that are coming into your home, but I also want to help you cut down on that paper that actually comes into your home in the first place. So if you want to get an extra gold star, take a minute. When you are paying your bills and sign up for paperless statements, usually it's very simple. The bills will have a website in the corner and you can just go on there and look for paperless statements and put in your account number and it's easy enough and it comes to your email. Now, I want you to give yourself a second gold star. If while you're there, you sign up for automatic payments as well. This will take the task off your plate of making a payment every month. So now not only do you minimize one task, you minimize the clutter that's coming into your home at the same time.
10:13 Now let's take a look at the mail or papers that end up in your to be filed area. This is where you will temporarily put those papers that you will store because you need to reference them at a later date. Examples of things to keep would be certain bills only. Those that you cannot easily look up online. So utility bills and bank statements don't fit here. A child's schoolwork is a good thing to put in here. Now that's not just the daily worksheets that come in, but a project or something with a good grade, something that you like or that your child is really proud of or receipts. But we'll talk about receipts a little bit more in a minute. So just so you know, there are actually very few things that we put in our to be filed section. We've lived in our new place for about four months and I think I have about 10 papers that are in my to be filed section that are not my child's schoolwork.
11:06 And then we generally tend to look at the schoolwork, um, on a regular basis together because it's hard to say on a daily basis which items will be our favorites from the year. There are definitely those things that come in and you know right away that they'll be tossed. We don't keep her homework or anything like that. Right? So the schoolwork that's put here is sorted through on a monthly basis. And I go through this with my daughter and we only keep the pieces that she is the most proud of and that she likes the most. Because I can kind of go through and get rid of the items that I really don't like first before she takes a pass at them. And then let's talk about receipts. Again. I only keep receipts for the month, for the previous month, and then I check them against my credit card statement. And then once I've confirmed that the amount was correct, they go in the garbage. Receipts for business expenses are kept with our tax paperwork. So that's a completely different type of receipt and I don't put those together.
12:02 The third type of mail that comes in that we talked about is the mail that is trash and this is all of that junk mail. Now we all get a ton of junk mail all the time. I will give you some ideas for how to cut down on this in just a minute. But for now, just remember that you've just put the stuff in the recycle bin or shredded as you're processing your mail into piles the day it comes into your home. Don't let it sit in a pile on your counter because it just starts to pile up mentally in your brain and it's something that you'd never needed to keep in the first place. So get it out as quickly as it comes in.
12:37 And then the fourth and final type of mail that we talked about was mail that belongs to someone else. So if there are some mail or paper that belongs to someone else in your home, like your spouse, a teenage child, or a parent that might be living with you, this mail can go into a special inbox for that person. You can clip it to a clipboard, you can put it in an inbox type file system, or you can put it on one of your tiers either way, separate it out and give the responsibility of that paper to its intended receiver. Now I'll give you a little side note here. I only pass on the important papers to my husband. So for us that would be things like paychecks, items for his business or things that require a signature. I process all of our bills and sort any junk mail that comes into our home. Make sense? This isn't a tit for tat. If it's junk mail, I'm not going to make him process it. That really would slow down the system. This keeps the machine running well and I think you get it.
13:32 So let's go ahead and move on and then finally let's discuss what it means to process these papers as they come in. So I have a file folder system for each of these categories. As items come in daily, I open the envelopes, take out the important pieces I need, sort out the papers to where they belong. Those are the action items to be filed, recycled or for someone else. And then at the end of the week you file the items that need to be kept. Put the action items on a centralized calendar if you haven't taken care of them already and clear out that file folder system or your paper sorter. This is a system that takes a little bit of time to master, but once it becomes part of your routine, it will become a habit. And just like brushing your teeth, it will feel weird if you skip it. So your paper clutter will start to be under control on a regular and daily basis.
14:25 Now that you have a plan for the paper that comes into your home on a daily basis, what do you do with the paper that is already in your home? I love the scale the Dawn from the Minimal Mom uses. It's a scale organized, kind of like a traffic light. It has green for easy to replace items, yellow for slightly difficult things to replace or find, and red for things that are very difficult to replace.
14:47 So okay, let's talk about those a little bit more. Green are the that you can easily replace or do not bring value to your life so you can get rid of them quickly and easily. This would be things like store circulars, old magazines, newspapers, flyers for events that have passed. You will not miss these items if you get rid of them.
15:07 Yellow are things that you can replace, but you might have to look around a little bit to find them. So think appliance manuals or bank statements, they're available online and so you don't need to keep them. You know, thankfully the internet has made it so much easier to find things like this online and especially those owner manuals. You can usually Google the question you have and somebody has already figured out the solution and you don't have to read through that manual that you never understood in the first place. A side note here, if you don't like relying on others to store this info for you, like think about your bank statements. If you don't want to rely on your bank to keep those statements for you for the next two years, you could keep an electronic record of these on your computer so that way you have a copy, but it's not physical paper stored in your home. It's definitely safer to get paperless bank statements because your bank statement will not be sitting in your mailbox where it could get lost in the mail or it could be taken by an identity thief. So definitely recommend doing online paperless statements. And if you don't trust your bank or want to rely on your bank to hold those statements for you, you can download a digital copy and keep those for yourself. But you only need to keep the last two years of bank statements. So make sure you clear those out.
16:20 And the third were those red things. So these are the things you would have a difficult time replacing like tax statements with the backup documents, your birth and marriage certificates and irreplaceable things like those that were from a loved one that's passed away so they cannot be replaced.
16:35 So you're going to use this barometer of things when you go through all of the paper clutter that's in your home right now. So in order to conquer that paper clutter, I recommend gathering it all in one central place and going through it in one sitting. Now of course I know that is easier said than done because we are busy parents with kids, jobs, partners, friends, parents and our phone pulling us in a million different directions at any given time during the day. If there's too much to do it all in one sitting, do one room a day or do one drawer a day, whatever you do. But use that barometer of easy to replace - so get rid of it, medium to replace - so find a replacement and then get rid of it, or the red, you know, definitely things that cannot be replaced and those are the only things that you need to keep a physical copy of and keep them in a file folder.
17:30 Are you in need of a bit of encouragement and somewhere to start. I know it can be hard. So I came up with 10 items that I recommend tossing immediately. You shouldn't even have to worry about these things. And so once you start to get rid of them, it will definitely lighten your load.
17:45 So number one, magazines. If you have a magazine subscription, make it a point to read the magazine when it comes in and only tear out pages that you are really going to follow up with. I mean, think about it, how many of us have clipped recipes or cute ideas from magazines and never looked at them again? I was totally guilty of this in college and years later I found my notebook filled with all these magazine clippings and Oh my goodness. It was pretty funny. Now I'm going to date myself because the internet was not what it is today and Pinterest definitely didn't exist, but I still didn't need to keep those clippings that I thought would be important some day or that I would look back on. When I looked back, the information was super dated and I'm kind of embarrassed that I actually thought I would look back on some of that stuff. Nowadays, anything you want is available with a quick search on your phone. There's no need to look through your files of magazine clippings. You can toss the magazine and look up what you want whenever you need it right on your phone. It's in your pocket or in your purse. It's always with you. You never have to go back and dig through a pile of papers.
18:54 I would also encourage you when you're going through your magazines to consider giving up those magazines. Subscriptions, looking through magazines is like soaking up one giant advertisement. As you look through the perfectly laid out pages, you might find yourself in comparison mode. I definitely do, and to be honest, I don't really look at magazines that much anymore. Every once in awhile if I'm on a plane or I'm getting my hair done, it's a nice guilty pleasure I get to do, but I definitely don't have them coming into my home because really it's a slippery slope. Before you know it, you are feeling dissatisfied with your own life and longing for the made up one on those glossy pages. So for me, the easiest thing is just to not even invite that dissatisfaction into my home. Okay, so that was number one. Magazines.
19:42 Number two, of something that you can toss immediately are old greeting cards. I know this one can be sentimental and tough, but I want you to go ahead and keep those that have a meaningful inscription if you want to, but know that it's okay to let go of greeting cards as well, especially those that simply say happy birthday and love from whoever gave it to you. The feeling you got when you received that card was all you ever need to hold on to. It's really the thought that counted. That person loved you and sent you the card and so now you know that and you can move on. So number two was old cards.
20:19 Number three are notes from old courses or conferences that you attended. Oh, this one can hurt. It can be especially hard to let go of these things because you probably spent decent money for that course or to go to the conference. If you've referenced the material in the past year, go ahead and keep it. There are definitely some courses that I have taken that I still reference back and so I'm glad I have those notes, but if you haven't looked at it in some, chances are the information is outdated and it's no longer relevant. You can let it go and be open to new information. I also was guilty of this part where I was holding onto these old digital courses for things that just didn't even matter and so I finally was able to let them go. I cleaned up space on my computer and it really just helped mentally too when I was looking through all these different files on my computer to be able to say, okay, I'm moving on past that and now I'm open to learning new things. It feels great. Okay.
21:17 Number four of something that you can toss immediately would be receipts. I briefly touched on receipts before, but let's dive back into these. First, I want to make sure that you keep all of your business receipts. Now these are for your end of the year taxes. I go ahead and I file these in their own separate file so that at the end of the year and beginning of the year, really when I'm doing my taxes, it's much easier. I just pick up that file. I can go through all of that information and that part is, makes it a lot simpler for me, but those personal receipts, I like to keep my personal receipts for a month and then check them against my credit card statement. That way. I just know it just makes me feel more comfortable with what's on my credit card and I can keep up with those purchases, helps me with my budgeting process and all of that stuff.
22:02 And then when that process is finished, I tossed the receipts. But let's be honest, today is really about starting out and how to deal with your paper clutter. We can get you to the point where you're able to do more budgeting and you know, make sure that your credit card bill is accurate. But right now we're talking about how to clean your paper clutter out of your house. So if you don't have a handle on your paper, you have my permission to throw away anything that is not business related. I will be sure to do a follow up podcast for those of you that want more and more in depth process for how to handle every little piece of paper. But for those of you that just want to be able to get rid of the stuff, you have my permission, you really only need to keep the business receipts.
22:45 Okay. Item number five coupons. Whoa boy. Coupons. If it's to a store or a restaurant that you frequent, feel free to keep the coupon but keep it in a place where you will actually use it. For me, this would be my purse or in my car. If it's to a new place that you want to try, go ahead and keep that coupon, but again in your plate in the place you'll use it. So purse or car and make it a point to go there. So in the past I've gone even so far as to put a date on our calendar that we're going to go to this new restaurant or we're going to go to the shop to check something out. Because if it's not on my schedule, oftentimes I will forget to do it. Now, if the coupon is to a place that you've never gone, you don't plan to go to, you don't want to go there, recycle it, get rid of it, get it out of your house. I know that seems simple, but you would be surprised at the things we have a hard time letting go of and coupons are one of these things. They work because we feel like a coupon is free money, but repeat after me, you actually spend more money to use a coupon than to throw it away. That's why it's important to only keep those coupons for the stores that you already go to. The places you are already going to spend money at, that's when a coupon actually holds value because think about it, spending zero on an item you don't need is going to save you more than spending $20 in saving $5 so in the end you end up spending $15 on something maybe you didn't need in the first place. Only keep coupons and use them for places where you are already going to go, even if you didn't have that coupon in your wallet. Alright, make sense? Okay.
24:32 Number six of things that you can throw away immediately. Your child's daily artwork. Whoa, boy. Again, I feel the mom guilt rising up in some of you. It's okay to not want to keep all of your kids' artwork. I promise this does not make you a bad mom. If there is a piece that you really like, keep it. If it's a daily doodle, your child made it preschool, elementary school making crafts together or at the gym's kids club, you know, put it on your fridge for the day and toss it when the next piece of our work is done or comes into your home. I know it's hard to throw some of these little creations away because we all love our children and we're all biased that they are amazing and adorable and they are, but you don't have to keep their artwork, their daily artwork, these little doodles to show your love to them.
25:25 Number seven, of something that you can toss right away are school flyers. So, now that our daughter is in elementary school, there is so much more to keep track of and now I know there will only be more as we move up through the grades and get more involved in afterschool stuff, but let's set a good foundation, shall we? Now, her school actually uses a program called peach jar, so we get virtual flyers, but for those of you who get paper ones, here's what I recommend. Have your kids go through the habit of emptying their backpacks every day. Look over the flyers and then sort them with your daily mail. These will most likely be things that either have an action item or that you can toss and then just take care of these fliers when you take care of the mail. Action items, go on the calendar and in your action bin and then the toss pile can just be put right in that recycle bin. Easy peasy.
26:19 Alright, number eight of paper clutter that you can get rid of right away are catalogs. Now, my first thought with catalogs is to just toss them, get them out of your house as quickly as possible. Remember how I was talking about magazines being one big advertisement? Catalogs are definitely one big ad advertisement and honestly they are a minimalist, worst nightmare. You glance through a catalog and see something cute you want. Your kids will look through them and create a wishlist or beg for something new. Your husband might find something he wants and goes ahead and buys it now. Anyway, you slice it, you or someone in your home will want something they didn't know existed before they opened that catalog. My advice to you is to stop the madness before it even starts. So before you toss that catalog, go online to catalog choice.org and unsubscribe from the catalog. Trust me, that website is your best friend. I will make sure I put a link in the show notes below. Again, that's catalog choice.org so we just moved into a new place this summer and I cannot even tell you how many catalogs we have received for the old tenants. It actually breaks my heart a little bit every time I open our mailbox. It's just such a waste of trees and money and time and energy. I have unsubscribed my address from about 40 catalogs and that is not an exaggeration. This time of year is even worse and companies are expecting you to spend more at the holidays, so resist opening the catalogs and it will be so much easier. And in fact, if you're looking for clutter-free gift ideas, check out episode number five. It's all about gifts that you can give that are full of meaning without adding clutter and stuff to your home. I'll make sure to link to the episode in the show notes too.
28:09 Okay. That was number eight. Number nine of paper clutter. You can discard immediately are store circulars, so pull out the one for the store you shop at and recycle the rest without even a glance. You will save time and money by not going to multiple stores each week and by shopping with a specific list at your regular store. Now, right now we're talking about how to cut down on paper clutter. This is about simplifying your life and your home. We can talk more about saving money in future episodes. As I know some of you are saying, but I like to go where the deals are and if it works for you and you have a system in place, you keep doing you, but for those of you drowning in paper, pick out the one for your store and ditch the rest. Okay, good. And then of course it should go without saying, but if you're going through the paper clutter that's in your home and there's old store circulars, immediately get rid of those please.
29:02 Okay, number 10 the last one that I recommend getting rid of immediately is the newspaper. So I actually recommend that you recycle these and that's mostly with this paper clutter. Okay, can we understand that? Great. But newspapers pile up so fast and if you get behind it is almost impossible to catch up on old newspapers if you are so inclined. I actually recommend that you stop receiving your newspaper subscription, the physical one, and look into getting a digital version. It's easier and more convenient for you and it's better for the environment. But if you do want to keep receiving the paper one, at least make sure that you put your newspaper on hold any time you go on vacation or you won't be at your home for a long period of time because that way you can donate those papers back and it's just less stuff for you to deal with when you get back from a vacation, when you're already tired.
30:00 And there you have it. We looked at how to deal with paper cutter that comes into your home every day via the mail and your children's backpack. We discussed how to soar through the old paper clutter around your home. And finally, I listed 10 items that you can toss immediately if you need a place to start. And to make it all even easier, I have created a cheat sheet for today's action items. You can download it for free littlegreenbow.com/paperclutter. Again, that's www.littlegreenbow.com/paperclutter.
30:34 B ut before we go, let's recap the steps for you. When dealing with your daily paper clutter, make sure that you, one, collect your mail every day. Two, sort it immediately into paper that requires an action, paper to file, paper to recycle, and paper that belongs to someone else. And then three, at the end of the week, clear out your paper sorter, put all the action items on the calendar or complete them and file all papers that need to be held in storage.
31:02 Okay. Then for your paper clutter already in your home, remember the traffic light system. Green - these are the items that you can toss as they are easily replaced. The 10 items I listed at the end of the show fit perfectly into this category. Yellow are for the items that are replaceable with little efforts, so go ahead and toss these items too. These are things like bank statements, owner manuals and utility bills. Now of course with those bank statements, you're going to want to go ahead and shred those. At least shred the sensitive information. And then the red part. Those are the items that you need to keep because they are difficult to replace or irreplaceable. These are items like birth and marriage certificates, tax returns within the past seven years or items from a loved one who has passed away and so you cannot replace them.
31:51 Don't forget, I also created that cheat sheet for today's episode so you can get your paper clutter under control. We've covered a lot of tactics and information today and if you're like me, you are probably not sitting at a desk taking notes. Don't worry. There is a beautifully crafted cheat sheet waiting for you in my freebies library, so head on over to littlegreenbow.com/paperclutter, one word or click on the link in the show notes and I will send you the cheat sheet from today's episode straight to your inbox so you don't lose it. Again, that's www.littlegreenbow.com/paperclutter.
32:26 And finally, if you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you'd subscribe to this podcast or my newsletter littlegreenbow.com/subscribe again, that's littlegreenbow.com/subscribe. I have a ton of freebies including a free 30 day simplicity calendar that I think you'll love. Plus, I'll be sure to share with you all of our future Wannabe Minimalist shows.
32:48 Next week on the podcast we'll be discussing a very timely topic, how to simplify for the holidays. I'm super excited about this topic because the holiday season is all about spending time with your family and your friends, not about stuff keeping up with the Joneses or impressing people. It will be filled with fun tips on how to make this holiday season one to remember. You won't want to miss it. See you then.
33:13 [music]
33:16 So this episode might be over, but we don't have to say goodbye just yet. Head over to my website littlegreenbow.com for tons of great resources, freebies, courses, and a link to join my free Wannabe Minimalist group on Facebook. Let's tackle this thing together and if you love this episode, it would be really helpful if you left a rating and a review so more families can find the show too. You're awesome! Thanks and see you next week.