Reclaiming Our Spaces: The Flow of Paper

Now that I have organized just about every major area of my house, I'm going to switch gears for a bit and talk about how my house functions.  My house can go from sparkling clean & perfectly organized to Crazytown in the course of an hour (read 2 small children live here).  I know if I don't stop every once in awhile & evaluate how things are working, we could get all cluttered up again in a hurry.

One of the biggies for me (& probably most of us) is paper that comes into the house.  It's overwhelming!  Way too much coming in.  Here's how I handle it:

1)  Mail:

Remove the junk.  Everything that is not vital gets thrown out.  No time for it.  No room for it.

Deal with it.  Some things can be read & then tossed, no need to even bring it inside.  I go through the mail in my car or the garage.  Keep that paper from ever getting into the house if you can!  If it's need to get filed, I have a to-be-filed box on my desk if I'm feeling lazy.  If I have time, I go ahead & file it.  If it's an invitation, I put it on the fridge because they make me happy.  I don't magazines anymore, because I don't want to deal with them.  Pinterest is my magazine these days.  If it's for my husband, I put it at the computer ; which is right by my to-be-filed box.

2) Receipts!! 

There are so many!  My husband got us this great app for our phones called Home Budget:

Using this app, I can input my receipt & it synchs with his right away & I can throw the receipt away after that (unless I need to file it for taxes).  It's nice to not have a purse full!  It's also nice to be instantly balanced at all times.

3)  Papers brought home from various places:  There has to be a home for these items. maybe it's in the to-be-filed box or out on the fridge or on the desk in a "to-do" box.  If they don't have a specific home, based on what it is, it will become clutter.

4)  Kid's Art:  I have heard some good ideas about this lately.  Some people take pictures and print them in a collage.  

How cute is That?

Some people keep the best art of the year & have one binder per year.  Some people keep a large gallery wall with cute frames to display the art until new art is created.

Martha Mcglothlin posted this on HGTV's Rate My Space

Scribbles and Such

I'm sure there are other things that I didn't mention, but these are the things that come to mind right away.  They can really be stressors, right?  Keep a paper recycling bin in your kitchen that is readily accessible & toss all that extra!

This week Holly organized her kids' closet!  Brave woman!!  Here's her post.