Papers, Papers, Papers

Credit card offers, bills, advertisements, magazines, receipts, notes, cards... from last year.. where do they go? On the desk, or the counter, or the end table. Clean the living room? they all go to the desk, and not fall on the floor if I am lucky.

Well, two weeks ago I decided to tackle the mess and find a way not to let it end up all back on there again. I moved it all to the desk and got out my shredder (been in a box in the closet to use when I get around to it). I then seperated the piles, stuff that could be thrown out as is went in the round circular file on the floor. Stuff that needed to be shredded (the credit card offers, bills and those tempting "use now" checks that come in with the credit card bills) I opened, threw away what could be thrown and set the rest in another pile, the "to be shredded pile". Then there were book like advertisements and "wish" books. I set a few of those in a pile on the chair in the livingroom and put my purse on the top. No, not for shopping, but then my granddaughter could get into them and think it was a "no no" and leave my piles alone.

I made another pile for bank statements. I hate to tell you how many months of statements was there! My last pile was for things I had to keep. My filing cabinet got the bank statements, another file got the things that had to be kept and that left this huge pile of shredding. I shredded, emptied the bin and shredded some more. Finally I had a desk!

Now, I keep the shredder on the back of the desk and take care of the junk as it comes in. File cabinet, circular file and shredder have eliminated all that mess. My husband even commented yesterday about how nice the place looked and he feels so good about less clutter.

Works for me!