7 Basic Organizing Tips To Get Rid of Paper Clutter

I love getting thank you notes. I like to read what my friends have to say about the gift or service that I have done for them. I like the beauty of the cards and I love to get "good" mail. The fact that my friends took the time to write me a note makes me feel important.

I received a call from a friend a few years ago who told me that she was re-reading her thank you notes that she had saved forever. She came across one of mine, and she called to tell me about it. It was sweet because I got to chat with her for a minute. At first I thought it was a stupid idea to save you cash and then for some reason I foolishly started to save my thank you cards.

As a professional organizer, I always give ideas and organizing tips for people when I speak, and also in my book about what to do with paper that comes into our homes. I have decided that we must have a love affair with paper, because we always have mounds and mounds of it, and then we have a hard time letting go of even the simplest pieces of paper.

With my thanks notes I had even taken the time to fill a book with maps, as I laid in a basket. I filled up in the book, so I just stacked the rest of the note cards I received about the book. About four or five years since I actually looked at all the cards and read some of the emotions. It dawned on me this week to keep the cards were just taking up space and they had a dust collector, a collection that never got dusty.

I decided it was not worth it for me to hang on these cards, which were never read, and I had no connection. I only thought I had a attachment.

, I took a deep breath, took my recycle bin and went to work. I read some of the maps in particular caught my attention and oozed and awed and I put all but five cards in the recycle bin. It was a tad hard but I kept my end, which was to get rid of clutter. Now, I wonder why it was even difficult to discard them. The five cards I held, I put in my folder in my application tray marked "short me". In this file I found the cards that I was able to discard. It feels so good to get rid of clutter.

Do you have roots live in your home, as I did? Is it just there and it is contained, so you never really see it? There is such a huge difference when you let it go. Somehow, that space and space seem brighter.

Here are seven fundamental organizing tips to get rid of paper clutter:

1st Round up all the paper you have in your home that you do not know what to do with, and you do not want.

2nd Make a decision to get rid of so much of it as you can. You can make a goal to discard 50%.

3rd Organize into piles of like to make it easier to separate through and file.

4th Get your name off junk mail lists, so you do not have so much paper coming into your home. You can Google junk mail or junk mail and you will get a wealth of places you can sign up to get your name out of the lists.

5th Make some goals to get rid of paper clutter. That is how I was able to get rid of my old thank you notes that were just taking up space and create clutter.

6th Established a working registration system in a file cabinet or a plastic banker box if you do not have a filing cabinet.

7th When you handle paper make a decision right then about what you will do with it. Do not put it down without taking a decision.

We all know paper can create clutter in our homes and our lives. By getting rid of paper clutter it frees our time, space and life.

Go to Marilyn's website to learn time-proven methods to get rid of clutter from your home.