As we move through life the clutter slowly mounts until you find yourself just boxing it up moving it from one place to another, never to see it again.
There are two ways to deal with paper, you can store them in traditional methods such as filing them, or you can store them electronically. Some papers cannot be stored electronically, such as a last will and testament, a handwritten note from an old love or a drawing a child or sibling created.
Take a moment to sort through these types of papers and set them to the side. Afterwards look through and find papers you don't need a hard copy of. A manuscript from college, an old to do list, or a recipe you've been saving. These type of papers can be stored electronically with relative ease.
Look through your papers and also find the papers you don't need or want any more and recycle them. Don't hold onto them thinking you may need them when you haven't touched them in five years.
Find a nice cabinet, container or drawer and store your papers you can't throw away here. Put them all in one large container with smaller folders or binders. Using one large container will leave you only one place to put papers, and only one place to go when you need to find them.
By having them all in one place, you will be less likely to leave them lying around. Keep your categories broad enough to manage every document, such as bills/receipts, finances, repair, etc.
Storing your papers you don't need a hard copy of is best done on your computer. Don't trust your computer? Open a Google email account, which allows seven Gigabytes of space and growing! Scan those papers in and convert them to a PDF file which is done through Microsoft Word or through your scanner Utility program. Then email them to yourself in Gmail, and in the body of the email write some keywords so you can search for them later.
The great thing about Google Mail is that you can easily search keywords and you don't have to worry about your computer crashing, plus you can access them anywhere in the world if you have internet access!
