Please please please give me tips on how to be more organised??!

[CrookshanksinJimmyChoos]

I try really hard...have a magnetic memo board on the kitchen for the shopping when I run out of stuff, calender for appts etc but when it comes to paperwork, its chaos! I can't just chuck anything I don't want as it as anything with address/name on has to be shredded, which I never get around to doing so it forms a mahoosive pile on the side and obliterates my keys etc....

Driving me mad!!!

Go and buy some files and an intray.

Sort the pile into stuff to keep, stuff to shred and stuff to action. Put the stuff to keep in the files. Put the stuff to action in your shiny new intray. Shred the stuff to shred.

Tackle the intray every day. Make sure that you action more stuff than is coming in. By the end of next week, the intray will have reduced to nothing.

You need to sit at your desk for at most 5 mins a day filing/shredding/actioning once you are sorted.

Don't keep stuff that you think you might want. Either you want it now, or you'll Google it when you need it.

Oooh.....Quattro you sound uber organised

A system is what I need then....painful...but must be done....

How much crap does come through the door on a daily basis though??? I thought life was s'posed to be getting less cluttered in this modern electronic age but it seems to be more so! Can't remember my mum being swamped with paperwork like this when I was small!

Keep on top of it.
Little and often.
Also,send any crap bACK WITH rts WRITTEN ON IT.
tHAT CUTS IT DOWN.
i open all mail but dh deals with it (I have responsibility for all other domestic issues.)

On the shredding - we found that we opened most of our post in the dining room, as it's the first room we tend to go into on coming into the house, so we have our shredder in there. Might look a bit , but having it right there means we can shred stuff as soon as we've opened it, iyswim. And subscribe to the Mailing Preference Service (you can do it online) to cut down on the junk mail.

Mailing Preference Service.

Oooohhh!!!!!

Thanks for that link!

I tend to just tear stuff in two or four and bung it in the recycling bin. Anything to keep currently sits on the stairs, keep meaning to at least get a box marked 'filing.'
I go through all our files once a year (when the IFA visits) and anything to be chucked I take to MIL's to use her shredder.
MPS makes a huuuge difference. TPS improved the quality of our lives too - no more calls in the middle of Eastenders!
Re calendar, I can't live without my family organiser one with columns for each family member - sometimes even babies have complicated social lives.