Stress, stress, stress! Good grief, every which way you turn is to be greeted with more stress. There is no avoiding it with sick kids, overextended credit cards, work deadlines, and life in general making its daily demands. So, we need to find viable solutions to deal with all of these hassles. For me, minimizing some of the pressure as much as possible has been the best alternative. And I’m doing that by trying to simplify and streamline specific areas of my life.

During the past year I have worked on my home one room at a time by decluttering and reorganizing everything to its best possible advantage. My mission is almost accomplished and I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. The last room to receive a complete overhaul and makeover is my office, which still looks like something from a disaster photo-op. But even in there I have started implementing small strategies to make this an easier transition than it looks. And it looks bad.

A couple of years ago, I initiated a new filing plan that my longtime friend, Julie Stiles Mills, shared in Bible study. We were discussing the book, Living With Less: The Upside of Downsizing Your Life, by Mark Tabb (Broadman & Holman), and how to get more out of life by choosing to live with less. (This is an excellent book that is scripturally based.) I was complaining about my resident paper monster and how I had several years of filing piled up waiting to be crammed into about a hundred or so folders. Julie’s solution was simple: Don’t do it.

Julie said that folders should only be used for paperwork that will be used actively such as bank statements and medical records, and to segregate other types of business and client materials. But to assign a folder to every single piece of paper that will probably never be touched again is unnecessary and time-consuming. She recommended sorting the filing by year and then pulling out only the pertinent papers that needed folders. The rest could go into a box or expandable file folder with the year marked on it and set aside for easy access, if necessary. If I needed to find something at a later date, I would know exactly where to go and look for it.

I have to tell you that this filing method has been so liberating! Such a simple solution to an overwhelming task.

Shortly after that discussion, Julie wrote a 3-part series entitled, “Don’t file paper at home anymore” at Pragmatic Compendium. In her charming and humorous style, she goes into a lot of detail on how to easily and efficiently tame the resident paper monster, and (this is the best part) teach other family members how to follow it! Here are the links:

Don’t file paper at home anymore: Part 1

Don’t file paper at home anymore: Part 2

Don’t file paper at home anymore: Part 3

Copyright 2008 Charlene Davis. All rights reserved.