I love paper.

I also hate paper.

I enjoy making lists with pen and paper, sending notecards, and collecting beautiful stationery and cute notebooks! However, one of our home’s biggest clutter challenges is paper—that’s right, paper everywhere!

No More Mail Please!

Mail is a major culprit! The amount of junk mail we receive is simply ridiculous!

Then there are school papers. This issue can escalate quickly, particularly if you have little ones who can bring home at least 25 pieces of paper in their backpacks daily! Letting those papers go can be challenging, especially since both Ryan and I are sentimental about our kids’ creations.

Our Home Was in a State of Paper Overload

A year ago, I felt completely overwhelmed by the mountains of paper in our home! It was stressful to see multiple piles and to worry that something important would be lost among them. The situation intensified when we adopted two children a few years ago, bringing a surge of paperwork from the foster and adoption process!

Paper overload was definitely a reality in our home.

Enough With This Paper

I’ve always prided myself on being organized, but as we settled in the U.S., our paper collection ballooned out of control! I had a system in place for important documents, but it felt like too much landed in the “important papers” pile.

Finally, I had enough!

Time to Solve This Paper Problem

I knew I had to address the overwhelming stack of papers in my home. I needed a straightforward system and to eliminate a significant amount of paper. Typically, when organizing, I clear everything from the space and start fresh. In this instance, I gathered all our paper piles into one room.

Our bonus room, which we use as an office and TV room, was where I took everything. It was the perfect location since I keep my shredder there.

First: Get Rid of the Unnecessary

The first step was clearing out all the unnecessary papers. I sifted through countless documents and shredded anything irrelevant. Most of the foster and adoption forms were shredded except for a few crucial ones. I excitedly completed shredding over several days, even tackling my small file boxes filled with important items.

I realized our tax returns were taking up space in my daily filing boxes, so I moved them to a dedicated storage box. I purchased a nice filing box to keep these in a safe place where we wouldn’t have to see them frequently.

Outdated papers for cars and homes we no longer owned were also eliminated, as well as numerous receipts from when we relocated from Honduras to the U.S. We’ve been here for almost ten years, so there was no need to continue holding onto those files.

After several days of shredding, I finally condensed my collection down to just the essential papers I needed to keep. The process, however, doesn’t end at simply clearing out existing papers.

Next: Setup a System and Be Intentional About It

What’s next? You can’t just stop; otherwise, the clutter will begin to return. A plan must be in place to prevent paper from piling up again. After going through the decluttering process, being intentional about how we manage paper is critical. Here are some strategies I employ that help reduce the amount of paper clutter:

1. Toss the junk: Go through your mail immediately upon receiving it. Stand by the trash or recycling bin and discard any junk right away. I typically toss flyers and generic junk mail into recycling. Anything with personal data goes straight into the shredder!
2. Create a method: Develop a simple filing system for important papers. For my mail, I divide it into three categories: trash (or shred), file, and take action. If I can manage it then and there, I do, but often I just place the papers in either the filing or action folder and review them daily. I prefer to do this at night or in the morning before the kids’ activities begin.
3. Switch to paperless billing: Converting bills to paperless formats can significantly cut down on the paper influx. Most service providers offer this option these days.
4. Stop those unwanted catalogs: Most catalogs come with an opt-out option. If you aren’t reading them, there’s no reason to receive them! Websites like www.catalogchoice.org can help you stop receiving unwanted mail.
5. Be ruthless: Adopt a ruthless approach to managing paper. Don’t keep unnecessary receipts or paperwork. If you don’t need it for tax purposes, toss it! Be cautious about accepting flyers or papers at events.
6. If you can find it online, don’t print it: With so much available online, consider whether printing is really necessary before doing it. Rely on online resources instead of keeping physical copies of items like instruction manuals.

Although we aren’t completely free of paper clutter, we’ve made significant progress! Ryan has greatly reduced his paper chaos as well. He used to leave notes on little scraps of paper everywhere until he transitioned to using digital tools like Evernote and Trello, which he now loves. Meanwhile, I still enjoy writing lists on pretty paper that keeps me organized!