Organizing Paper Peak

I have a tendency to make easy tasks difficult. I think about and plan things for so long that I'm tired of doing them before I actually do them. Just ask my husband!

Our house recently became proof of my problem. It was more cluttered than it had ever been. Adding Christmas into the mix was a recipe for disaster. So, I began to successfully declutter. However, I never did anything about my pile, okay piles, of paper.

It was easier to ignore those piles since I had so much space for them. My husband recently installed a microwave over our oven which gave me all the counter space that our previous microwave had occupied. However, I also had paper piles on our desk and on a table in the basement. I was getting tired of it, but didn't know where to start.

Late last week, I was talking to a friend who is naturally organized. I started asking her questions about what she does with her papers and she explained her simple system of using binders and folders. It dawned on me, (finally) that I was making paperwork out to be a larger task than it really is.

The same day I talked to her, I headed to Target and bought a few supplies. I began tackling my piles. I even tackled piles in the basement! I realized that part of my problem was I had started too many filing systems and never just stuck with one! (The story of my life!) Currently, in our giveaway pile I have one file drawer, one file box, three 13-pocket expandable files, two 7-pocket expandable files, countless folders and who knows what else!

Now, more than two years after my husband bought me two larger filing cabinets, I'm finally using them! I'm not sure it will stick, but for now, three binders and two filing cabinets are doing the trick and taking up much less space than my former plethora of failed filing systems.

Perhaps 2011 will be the year I finally defeated the paper pile, uh, I mean, piles!