Paper Project Update

Ok the last few steps have been a little simpler and so I haven't given them each a post. So let's just call this the steps 3-5 update!

Step # 3 - Receipts

This is not a huge issue for us. We use the Dave Ramsey envelope system and the receipts are kept in there. I like the idea of keeping them elsewhere, but I worry that might be a bit too much of a change for us right now. For the time being, I vow to work hard to actually keep track of my reciepts and to actually record all of my purchases. Then down the line we can see if there is a better system to implement.

Step #4 - Maintaining

This is a big one, however not something I acn do on my own and write a cute post about! I did talk to the dear husband this weekend, and we have come up with some plans.

Here is our "before" routine:
- he's home at 5:30
- grab mail on the way in
- open mail and leave on chair
- leave pile of mail for me either in the diaper bag or on the floor next to the diaper bag
- I'm home at 7:30
- don't see the piles
- assume there's no mail
- wonder how the house got trashed

So I asked my loved one if he minded NOT bringing in the mail as soon as he got home. It had become part of his routine because "I'm outside anyway" but he understands why it's best to leave it in the mail box until we need it. I want to invest in a mail center for us where I can put things "to file" and "to do" etc. Then once a week I can go through and get it all put up. My logic says "put it up as you go" but this is not a reasonable expectation from my husband. I think a good compromise will be to have a place for him to put it, and then I can deal with it Friday on my day off.

Today is the first mail day since this discussion, so we'll see how it goes! I think that having our clean office space will be a big help with this as well. I receive so many free samples every week, and if I have a clean desk, he can just plop them there for me to go through.


Step #5 - Going Paperless

I need to come up with a POA (plan of action) for this one. We do not get paper bank statements, but we do get statements from most credit cards/utility companies. What I need to do is make a list and then go company by company requesting to go paperless. This shouldn't take long, but needs to be done. Maybe a good Friday project.



So here is my step 3-5 gameplan (so y'all can keep me honest!):

1) Get better about tracking cash payments and keeping reciepts
2) Work with husband to get our new (less paper-piley) routine going
3) Contact anyone who sends me a bill to ask them about paperless

Project Paper Catch Up

Step #2 was to get all of that paper junk into pretty little file folders!



TADA!

So just to show that we're making progress...

(my desk)

(my dear husband's desk... complete with husband!)

(my craft table... see the Silhouette machine under there! STILL haven't used it! ugh!)

(filing cabinets which will soon be gone)

(recycling can full of paper)

(shred pile... ugh! The shredder better buy me dinner and wine after the intimate time we're going to spend together!)

So the plan was to move on very quickly to step #3 & #4 BUT... I have had a little helper join me and he's about done blogging for the time being! Progress is good but now it's baby time!

Project Paper - Day #1

Welcome to Day #1 of Jen at IheartOrganizing’s Project Paper challenge!

Yesterday's challenge had 3 parts:
1) Research what you need to hold on to
2) Keep what you need
3) Recyle the rest!

After my little man went to bed last night, I got to work. I started wth my Mary kay filing because it needed to be done. I pulled it all out and consolidated it into 2 expandable files. I’m not sure why I needed two whole filing cabinet drawers for this before…

The next thing I did was to tackle the personal/home filing. It didn’t take long to go through, and I ended up with a nice sized pile of trash, and a nice sized pile of things to be shredded. We don’t actually get pay stubs anymore (they’re available online), so there really isn’t much that we have to keep. I have taxes of course, a section for house stuff (warranty, receipts from work we’ve had done/appliances, electricity agreement, etc), a section for cars (service policy information, can insurance, etc),a section for medical stuff, a section for legal stuff and that’s all I can think of right now (I’m not able to go to the office right this second).

Other things I found in the cabinets that will need homes:
Spare sheets for the futon we no longer have
Instruction booklets for anything we’ve ever owned
Lots of office supplies

So here are my drawers now:

(personal/home files...)

(Mary Kay filing)

I anticipate getting rid of more paper clutter from the keep pile as I start putting things back together. My next big step is going to be rounding up all of the rest of the paper from the room. I have a plan though! I’m going to take 3 big cardboard boxes and put them in the middle of the room. One will be trash, one will be shred, and one will be keep. Then I am going to buzz around the office like a little bee until there is not one piece of paper that can be seen outside of those boxes. I *might* take a picture after this because it will be a huge transformation just the get the “crap” out, but I might not. I’m thinking it may be best to wait on the full office pictures so that I can shock everyone with an amazing before and after later! We’ll see!

January Challenge!

Jen over at IHeartOrganizing has issued a challenge for January! Clean out your paper clutter!

Where does your paper monster live? Mine is in the home office. It started out admirably enough. "Oh my goodness! This house is a mess! I have GOT to get the ____ [insert messy room name] cleaned up or I'm moving!" But then lazy happened. "I have this huge pile of stuff I need to file/put away and it all goes in the office... maybe instead of spending 30 seconds doing that right now, it would be a BETTER idea for me to take the stack and set it on some random flat surface in the correct room! That way I can promise myself I'll get to it later and never do it!"

So that's what I did. Once... twice... thrice (???)... A MILLION GAZILLION TIMES! So now the office looks like this:

(This is a slightly cleaned up version... I actually started picking at the office in December so this isn't the lowest of lows).

This is actually great timing for a project like this one! My dear husband and I have been talking about re-doing the office. It was a great place for two gamers to hang out when we first moved in. When we found out we were having the little man we had to do start office renovation part one.

I originally had an L shaped desk floating in the middle of the room with both of our computers on it. It actually looked pretty cool, but there were cords EVERYWHERE and somewhere in my "OMG LEARN ABOUT BABY" books it said that infants shouldn't play with electrical cords. So that's how our computers got where they are now.

We took the L-Shaped desk and took out the middle joint section leaving us with 2 regular desks. We threw them up against the wall, and put our filing cabinets in between to hold the printer. Why do we have two filing cabinets? Well, I had one in my apartment, and my lover had one in his apartment... so when we moved together we had two! Can you tell I'm an accountant? Look at that math! We bought a futon to put along the other wall and put a bookshelf in the corner. It was actually realy cute looking... if not entirely functional.

Fastforward almost a year (my little man will be one in 21 days... but who's counting?) and we've re-arranged again. First of all, Dave Ramsey told us we should sell stuff to have an emergency fund. Goodbye futon and bookshelf! Hello baby step #1!

So then we had an estate sale for my grandmother and I picked up these two lovely chairs!

Doesn't that beautiful orange just scream 1973?! So those will be my first re-upholster project... wish me luck! We also inherited a nice big dining room table which makes me sooo happy!

Our smaller round table has made it’s way to the office. We trashed our big ugly falling apart office chairs and are now using our small ugly “retro” chairs at the desks AND at the table when needed. It’s really not half bad! Except… do you remember that picture up at the beginning?

Here it is again:

Oh yea! There’s no room for anything! So anyway, here is my plan for the room:

For those of you who can’t appreciate my insane paint skills, I plan to push the computer desks up to surround the window on the front wall. The round table will be folded down to take up less room on the wall where the desks are now. The computer accessories (silhouette, printer, router, NPC scanner, etc) will be on floating shelves in the corners above the desks. I plan on making a fun chalkboard area for the little man also. The filing cabinets are GONE! I figure the few paper things we need to keep can be put in a small portable file (thank you Jen for the idea) in the closet, and we can get rid of the cabinets completely! So I’m going to sell those on Craig’s List, and use the proceeds to get the portable solution for the closet!

And now for the great segue you’ve all been waiting for…

If I’m going to get my room to go from this:

To this:

I’ve got to get my paper clutter in order (and for the most part shredded and gone).

Stay tuned for updates as this transformation takes place!