I'm about to embark on a MASSIVE paperwork sort-out, and don't know where to start. Please come and offer advice and encouragement

[SoonToBeOrganisedMum]

Right, I've name-changed for this because I'm so bloody ashamed of the state of my paperwork piling filing system. I could locate my passport in an instant (I think ...), but most other stuff - utility statements, bank statements, receipts, tax stuff - no way. I even have boxes of paperwork labelled "to sort" from when I moved house four years ago. And a couple of hundred dollars left over from a holiday two years ago, but I have no idea where.

Because I have never cracked setting up an easy-to-use filing system, and routine and structure and being organised and orderly don't come naturally to me, the piles just mount and mount, and every year when it's tax return time, locating the necessary paperwork is an ordeal.

I feel crap about this, and enough's enough. I have set aside the next three days, on and off, to get my various piles of paperwork sorted into an orderly filing system, with the ultimate aim being that I'll be able to lay my hands on any piece of paper I need to, straight away.

I have a filing cabinet, suspension files, ring binders, the odd box file, shredder, etc. Where do I start? Lump everything in the filing cabinet? Or are some things (bills, bank stuff, receipts) better filed in their own ring binders? I think I have one of those concertina files too.

I'm dreading this, but it has to be done, and the sooner the better. Please give me all your best tips on organising household paperwork, on what must stay and what can go, on how to stay organised, and words of encouragement to get this (daunting) mission accomplished by close of play Thursday.

Thank you!

how long do you need to keep stuff for - like utility bills, bank statements?

I, too, am having a major paperwork sort out. Poor DS's room has been the dumping ground for a couple of forests of paper.

I've now decided the FILING is no big deal. I've done it! Last night piles are dealt with. I think I could now find most things if I wanted to.

It is the TO DO pile that causes backup, separating the chronic ("this will take all morning to sort out this problem"To do's) from the instant stuff, like paying bills.

How do you deal with that folks?

You can triage them into
important/urgent
important/not urgent
not important/urgent
not important/not urgent

Most of the last two categories can come off the To Do list altogether, then you just have to work through the first two, and find a way of managing the To Do list.

I use my email inbox as my To Do list. Things that I need to do regularly like the internet shopping order or the car insurance are diarised in google calendar, and an email reminder pops into my inbox at the appropriate time. Otherwise I send an email to myself with the action as the subject heading, then archive/delete when it's done. I rarely have an empty inbox but if it's over 20 items long I know I'm getting overwhelmed. Usually there are four or five things on there at any one time.

Most bills can be direct debited, of course (and certainly all CC bills should have at least a minimum payment DD set up, to protect your credit rating). There are very few bills I have to actively pay, as most just happen automatically.

thank you asylum good categories. Simple when you think about it

diarize google calendar - eek what's that? runs for the hills

It does sound a bit scary -sorry about that! - but one of things I found when trying to get organised after having the DCs - was having and more importantly using a diary. Whenever a piece of paperwork came in that needed either something to be done, or a date to be remembered (ie a birthday party, or car tax due) to transfer the information to the diary and then get rid of the paper. Flylady helped here; she says there's no point having a diary unless you regularly check it.

So I decided that as I'd never really got on with paper diaries, I'd keep an electronic diary. Some people use outlook; I happen to like google calendar as I can access it from any computer and via my phone. The advantage to using an e-diary is that you can set up regular reminders ie every Thursday I get an email to remind me to complete my internet grocery order, and every quarter I get an email to remind me to pay the nanny's income tax to HMRC, and every year I get an email a month or so before my MOT date, to remind me to organise that.

I check my calendar every morning, and am checking my email a few times a day anyway, so I don't tend to miss things now. If it's in my inbox it must be done. So my email inbox IS my to do list. If my inbox is empty I have nothing to do (apart from those things that noone gets round to like organising a decade's worth of family photos).

There were a couple of books/websites that really helped me when came to getting organised, that you might be interested in. I took the best bits from each system and worked out a plan that worked for me. I'm very much a work in progress. I have lovely paperwork (if I say so myself!) but my housework is dreadfully disorganised and my meal planning is a joke. But I'll get there in the end.

Flylady
Confessions of an Organised Homemaker
Zen Habits

I keep a set of three office trays, the top one is stuff to do, the middle one is random stuff that I need to keep for a bit but not actually file away eg a few catalogues, leaflets etc, and the bottom one is filing. anything that is really urgent I deal with straight away before it goes into the trays.

I keep a magnetic board on the wall next to the calendar, there are 4 large magnetic clips on it, I keep all the school letters and appointments etc (one each for the DCs, DH and me) on there. I write all appoiintments etc on the calendar immediately. I have also just started a book as a daily TO DO list, which is very useful too.

Iloveasylumseekers - drooling at the thought of a proper filing cabinet, but alas no room.

@MrsDinky mine lives under the stairs so doesn't really take up too much room. It's two drawer, so this size.

This is what I would love my desk to look like.

@FritziGreenEyes - mmmm lovely. Nice blog, too. Thanks for the link.

One of my friends' desk looks like that, I am very . Also of the filing cabinet, and mentall assessing where I could put one that would be accessible.

Read the blog, lovely, but I couldn't bear to part with things like my cookery books, in fact any of the things in that second list. I don't want to have the computer on all the time, I just end up on MN! I still find the Yellow Pages very useful and the kids love reference books and atlases. think I might be living with my paper clutter for a bit longer yet.

OP, I have a very busy week this week but have promised my DH that I will sort all this stuff out from Monday onwards. I have drawers and concertina files and shelves overflowing with paperwork while my nice wooden filing cabinet stands empty because I never get round to filing!

Oooh, I love a bit of filing. geek emoticon

I keep one of those box/expanding file things.

I have the following divisions:

My bank account
Joint account
Insurances
Warranties and important receipts
Mobile phone
Utilities (as I deal with them far less often)
University stuff (I left not long ago)
Work (copy on contract, pay slips etc)
Tax and old jobs (P60s, P45s and so on)
Housing (until recently I've been living in shared rented accomodation)

I think that's it. I persuaded my DP to get one and he has similar divisions. We've not long lived together and the mortgage on the flat is his, so he has that and all his own stuff.

We don't have kids yet, but when we do I expect I'll make one for them as well.

Update: DS hasn't been well, so this week's paperwork overhaul hasn't started yet! Bugger.

racingheart, I'll join you with the Monday pledge. I too have all the piles around the place and a half-empty filing cabinet! We don't deserve them, do we?

Thanks for the links, iloveasylumseekers. And good luck, everyone!

Just seen this.

Are you me, OP?

The Organised Mum wall planner & pocket diary have been wonderful. Need to take the leap and go paperless on the diary front. I cld use my iPhone but don't think I would get on with it. Annoys me there is no option to set 3 or 4 week repeats on regular entries.

You don't necessarily have to file by date. If it makes you more likely to file stuff, then lob it into its section in any old order. When you need it, you will be motivated to find the right date.

This makes you more likely to keep up with ongoing filing - but only works if you have detailed separate categories. No point in having a "house" file with this approach. You need "House insurance" "BT" "Gas" "Electricity" etc for it to work.

I have one drawer that all opened/important papers are kept. Then when it gets full, I file the papers into the master files. Usually in front of the telly, using the whole floor to make up separate piles.

Bills to be paid live on the desk - but I have very few that aren't DD/standing order so only have a max of 2-3 at a time.

Absolutely @FreeButtonBee; I try roughly to have the most recent stuff at the front of any one file, but it's by no means perfect. As long as the file is not too stuffed you can most things quickly enough even if it's out of date order. The trick is to remove the very old stuff so that each hanging file/ section of concertina file, only has a year or two max in it. Either by chucking it, or archiving it. It's very rare you need to look at statements that are over a year or two old.

I find that it is useful for very old/archived stuff (the things I have to keep for HMRC being self-employed) to have things filed by date - well, actually, just by year - as when the next year passes I just fling out the entire file without having to look too closely at it. And if I do need to retrieve an individual piece of paper, as long as I know the year, I know that it will be somewhere in the 2007 (say) folder.

Haven't managed to do much yet as DH on holiday this week and is in the way to much.

I am also planning to get most of it done on Monday. It is all in the nursery and due date is 12th Aug so want to get on and get it sorted not just moved to different location.

Have started standing next to recycling bin while opening mail. It's amazing how much rubbish is posted through your door.

Going to try and buy pin board tomorrow as I have quite a few bills that are not direct debits and i kept putting them in that safe place and never being able to remember where they are.

Good luck all that are attempting massive sort out on monday and all those accomplished already - well done

i started a very similar thread and got about 3 replies. The replies I did get were fantastic (thank you - I did do them, REALLy good suggestions) but am now [sulk] that your thread was all popular and mine wasn't!

(DO it though - you feel so virtuous! Do you own a shredder?)

Thanks for more posts and useful tips. How's everyone getting on?

I have the Organised Mum A5 week-to-view diary/"Life Book". It's great. I don't seem to have a problem with dates and birthdays. It's paperwork! And I generate it too, because I sketch things, and come up with ideas for things that I don't want to let go of.

I could do with a pin board too, mostly for current school notices, invitations, etc.

Good luck today, mumtoblaire.

at Stealth. We've all had threads that go nowhere, though. Link to your thread and I'll post on it!

Yep. I have TWO shredders (left over from office clear-out). Am going to need them, I reckon.

I am favouring MrSDinky's idea of three big boxes for SHRED, RECYCLE and KEEP - to begin with.

Anyone have a special way of filing their stuff for tax purposes? When it's tax return time, do you go gathering it all up from the relevant files, or do you keep everything separately in one place as the year progresses, so it's all there ready to go?

For stuff that needs keeping (rather than shredding or recycling) I have one of these nice cabinets

A drawer for everything:

Correspondence awaiting reply, incl. bills
to pay
Misc correspondence not requiring reply
Bills paid and expenses receipts (self-employed)
HMRC
Utilities
Payments received
Car
Mortgage
Building work
Child benefit/tax credits
Schools and child stuff (one drawer per child)
Pensions
Bank stuff
Insurance
Instruction leaflets and guarantees
etc

The individual drawers will hold a surprising amount of paper -- I can get a year's worth of receipts and paperwork in the Expenses drawer. All the others I find that by the time the drawer gets too full the stuff at the bottom is 5 years + old and can be shredded.

[simples]

Organised mum:

I've tried it both ways with the tax receipts, and concluded that it's easier to just bung it all in a drawer and take a day some time after the end of the tax year to sort it all into piles for each category.

I found sorting it at source to be too complicated in storage terms, and that I'd put off filing things because I didn't have time to sort them. Easier to bung it all in a drawer and then bite the bullet some time in April/May.

Oooh - I do like that cabinet frogs. I think my dh would go mad if I suggested adding another piece of furniture to ours house though until we have got rid of stuff we don't want.

Update: progress!

I expanded on MrsDinky's three boxes and have had six on the go this week:

• Recycle
• Shred
• Rubbish
• File
• Archive
• Action immediately

I'm using big archive boxes. 'Recycle' is now two thirds full, 'Shred' is half full, 'File' is about a third full, and there are a few bits in the other three. Lots of the 'File' one will end up archived I reckon, once I go through it.

I have found an unopened bank statement from 2003. And I have found all my current and savings account statements for the last couple of years - which were scattered around the place in various piles - and they are now organised in chronological order in a file. Any tax bits for 2009-2010 I've put to one side, ready for my next tax return. And I've removed my details from several mailing lists.

All of the paperwork sorted so far has come from the accumulated piles of the last couple of years, plus a few rogue boxes of papers from years ago. I still need to go through my existing filing system - which has hardly been used during the last couple of years - and drastically shrink and overhaul that, too.

So, still plenty to do, but it's definitely feeling like progress already. It feels great to have the beginnings of a sense of where everything important is. I'm starting to feel less irresponsible in control. Yay!

Anyone else got stuck in?

There are some great ideas on this thread. It has inspired me to finally stop procrastinating, caused by that feeling of being overwhelmed that is common in this situation. Thanks so much for the tips and the inspiration. I'd like to write more but I have papers to sort!