wading through paperclutter- moral support??

[halftermhalfawake]

after a series of unfortunate events (divorce, house move, ill health, solo parenting etc) my once organised home paperwork system is now a paperlanche.

I am wading through as per the thread title but it's boring and hard even with a playlist and caffeine, and the nicest stationery I can reasonably acquire

can someone keep me motivated, I don't really want to adult anymore.

I've unsubscribed from anything that stands still long enough and I've gone paperless for anything with that option but there is a back log and I'm so bored/tired!

Can you break it down into shorter sessions? Just keep thinking how great it will feel when you finally get to the bottom of the pile.!

I find it easier to tackle in two stages. Stage 1: sit on the floor and sort into type. So credit card bills, school stuff, utilities. Stage 2: deeper sort/organise of a single pile while sitting where it lives. So I move to filling cabinet with the credit card bills, organise by date and then into the file

Firstly, congratulations for starting. This is excellent. You're already fighting the b@st**rd paperwork monster.
Secondly: you've got this! One paper at a time. Slowly but surely. Better to do it slowly and begrudgingly and get it all sorted properly.

I collect little piles of paper around the house until I'm at the point of stress explosion, then collect them all and sort through and wish I'd done it as the papers appeared.

Maybe plan a little bonfire with all the ones you can throw away?

X

I'm being more cautious with the "keep" pile/mountain due to the circs, I have a "maybe" pile.

I shredded a carrier bag's worth while cooking diinner, shred, stir, shred etc

Knackered now and taking a break for baby beddy byes. I'll see if I have any resolve left for Olympics and shredding/filing. Wild Friday night, I tell you, wild. It might just be a case of a hot chocolate and giving The Pile my worst Paddington stare

Put something decent on the telly. (But not something you need to watch closely!)
Shredding as you go is definitely good. You could go one better and empty shredding into paper bags / carriers as you go so it can go straight into your recycling so it doesn’t just sit there.
I have a ‘shit file’ (got the idea from DB) for anything I need to keep but don’t want to sort through unless absolutely necessary - I’m divorced too, and also am the holder of my DM’s and DDad’s death certificates etc.
Factor in breaks. You probably won’t get through it all in one go if you’re like me, so use boxes or bags for anything that you have gathered but haven’t sorted yet and put it out of sight so it’s not staring at you - putting the bags down the back of the sofa is fine for this if you had nowhere else. The bags / boxes also help you to break down the task into more manageable chunks.
Losing heart part way through is normal IME, but keep going, and make sure you reward yourself here and there.

Had a midnight filing blitz catching up on the Olympics. Ordered more filing stuff to come tomorrow. I know in home organisation they say order storage last but the leaning tower of neatly organised "2025" docs is teetering homelessly, so needs must. Exhausted now. Thank you all for the moral support, more shredding-filing-maybe-ing awaits me but definitely not tonight