How to Climb Your Filing Mountain

I’m working with a lovely client who is, shall we say, “just a little” behind on her filing.  Unfortunately, paperwork can pile up surprisingly fast, and before you know it, a small mountain may be facing you. Getting started is usually the most daunting part, so here are some tips if you, too, have let weeks of paper turn into months… or even years.

• Start with a rough sort.  When you have several piles of paper, each about a foot high, it’s hard to find a chunk of time long enough to get it all done. So, instead of aiming to file each piece of paper in its final location, just try to turn these random piles into piles by rough category.  For most people, groupings of home, finance, car and personal will be a good enough starting point.
  

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• The beauty of the rough sort is that you’ve now created much smaller, more manageable tasks.  The next time you have some filing energy, you can tackle each of your rough categories in turn, to allocate the papers more precisely.  For example, home might then become mortgage (or rent), utilities, repairs and so on.
• Most Professional Organizers love to file, but apparently, 80% of the paper that’s filed is never looked at again.   So, there is a balance to be found between the time you spend filing and the time you will spend looking for a piece of paper, if you need it. If you want to optimize your time, you might decide to file certain types of paper carefully (things needed for your taxes, for example) and others (utility bills) less precisely.  If, when looking for an item, you think you’ll know the approximate date of it, then one system is to get a big box and simply throw this general paperwork in, as it arrives.  That pretty much files by date, and if you drop in a piece of neon-colored paper on the 1st of each month, you’ll have dividers. This method is somewhat brave, but is definitely an option for filing-haters.  Each year, you’ll need to purge your box and recycle most of the papers in there, before archiving the contents and starting afresh.
  

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• Do you really need to keep that flyer?  Here’s a nice guide for how long to keep different types of paper.  Just remember, we all (yes, including me) tend to hang onto far too much.
• Make the task a little more enjoyable.  Set a timer and stop when the alarm goes off.  You might ask a friend to join you (you’ll need to reciprocate, of course). Play some upbeat music while you work… and plan a reward for the end of your session.
  

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• Once you feel a little more under control, be ruthless about what joins your filing pile.  You can begin to reduce the paper that enters your home in the first place, by using services like Do Not Mail and Catalog Choice. When your mail arrives, sort it each day next to a recycling bin, and say goodbye immediately to as much as you can.

What other tips do you have for starting up the foot-hills of a filing mountain? And, in all honesty, how often do you file?