How To Sustainably Handle Your Paper Clutter

Mountains of paper, mail, bills, kids artwork, grocery lists, to do lists, and peoples contact information. Where do you start? 

What kind of paper clutter do you have?

Like all organizing projects we start by sorting and categorizing to see what we have.

Step 1:  Separate everything into piles of like/similar things.

I put all of the unopened mail in one pile, put all of the bills in one pile, all of the kids' stuff in one pile.  If you have multiple grocery lists started because you couldn’t find the other one - put them together.  Random people‘s contact information?  Put all of them in one stack.

Step 2:  Sort/categorize further

Once you have everything separated out then you can separate things further.

In the pile of bills for example we can separate them either by individual company OR by paid bills versus unpaid bills.

The kids' stuff can be separated into completed projects/homework, homework that needs to be done, important documents like report cards, school announcements and anything that will require future action.

Step 3:  Decide what to keep

Kids stuff:  Correspondence from your kids' schools can be put into a folder and emptied out on a quarterly, half year, or full school year interval. There’s no need to hang onto correspondence after one year. I encourage my clients to keep their kids favourite (and your favourite) art pieces for one year.  After a year you can decide which ones are the best that you would like to keep longer term.  Each year set time aside with your kids to review the previous years' pieces. If there are similar pieces from one year to the next, perhaps they can choose their favourite.  Choose a couple to display out in the home every season then swap them out for others. It will keep things fresh and you’ll be able to appreciate the pieces more than keeping all of them out all of the time.

Important documents: Taxes need to be held onto for seven years and things like strata, homeowners association, or other community information/updates should be kept for the period of time recommended by the association. For example, I have been told that in BC strata documents, notifications, and correspondence should be kept for 20 years. If a new owner purchases the property they can see everything that has happened in the last 20 years and how much any updates would cost. But again this is not a blanket rule or guideline because some more organized strata may have everything digital now. If the new owner wanted to see these things the strata could send them a digital file with all of this information in it.

For getting rid of paper and documents with sensitive information like account numbers, birthdays, SIN or SSN, passport, birth certificate copies, etc should either be burned in your fireplace or be taken to a place that does confidential shredding to be safely destroyed.

Important items that require action: I encourage my clients to have one category that is for urgent and action items. Everything that needs to be done that week should be put in a container. This could include bills, school permission slips, correspondence, rsvp requests, etc. Action items for future weeks can be put in an adjacent basket or file labeled with the week they need dealt with. After this week’s action items are finished then the next week's action items can be moved into the basket or file for this week. I love to use something vertical so the papers can stand up and you can leaf through them more easily than if they were laying flat in a stack.  Bonus: Having them vertical will also take up less space. 👌 I love this magnetic one from The Container Store. Snap it to your refrigerator so you can easily leaf through your action items for this week. Love the colour of it too!

Note: If you have a backlog of items and things that need to be done then take one or two items of the backlog and do them each week along with your additional action items for that week. It’ll take some time and you have to be patient with it but slowly you will decrease how many things are in that overwhelming and overdue pile.

Step 4:  Assign a new home … aka … Converting to digital

It’s important to note that from a sustainability point of view, we would like to eliminate as much paper being consumed as possible. This includes the paper you use and the paper coming into the house. This of course keeps it easier to keep organized and less work to declutter.  

**Whenever you are decluttering paper please always consider recycling the paper instead of throwing it in the garbage. Some paper, like brown paper bags, can even be composted.

Transfer things to digital versions as much as possible.  This will not only help save a considerable amount of paperwork to sort through and places you need to store (and find!) them, but you’ll also save some beloved trees in the process.  Win-Win!

Bills: Thanks to online banking and bill paying, you don’t need a paper or a digital copy of your bills anymore. I highly recommend converting all of your bills (utility bills, mortgage, rent, etc.) into digital formats. All of these bills are accessible through your online account with these companies, which means that it’s unnecessary to keep the physical paper copies of these bills.

Grocery and To Do Lists: Things like grocery and to-do lists are perfect to keep on your phone. In your notes app on your phone you can have a running list. Since our phones are on us throughout most of the day it is easy to grab your phone, open up the app, and add any grocery items you think of or things you need to do.

People’s contact information: Anytime you receive someone’s contact information then you can also put this directly in your phone and recycle the piece of paper. 

Overall, converting things to digital as much as possible not only helps the environment but also will dramatically reduce how much paper accumulation there is at home or in your office. But then that does mean that you will have more digital things that need sorted. For more advice with handling any digital clutter you might be accumulating, you can check out the blog on Clearing Up Your Digital Clutter and on Digital Clutter.

Step 5: A Mindful Transition

When you have lived your life using paper for your bills, to make all of your lists, and to keep track of all important documents then it will take time to start transferring your brain into getting used to having these things in digital format. It’s very important that you be patient with yourself and allow yourself a large transitional period. This could take anywhere from 3 to 6 months up to 1 to 2 years. It can take a long time to change our habits and to really change our approach to our lives so please be gentle with yourself. 

Keep being mindful of the types of paper clutter you are accumulating and learn how you can convert them into digital format instead of paper as much as possible.

Melanie McConnell is a Professional Organizer and the owner of Mello Spaces. She helps busy professionals and parents get the organized home of their dreams. Check out her website www.mellospaces.com and follow her on Instagram: @mellospaces

Florena Davies is a Professional Organizer and Owner of Organize by Flo. She uses her experience as a wife and mother of 2  to create real life organizational systems and changes for work and home that allow our 2 worlds to co-exist and 'Flo" together. Check out her website at https://www.organizebyflo.com/ and on instagram @organizebyflo.

Marybeth Welty is a Professional Organizer, Interior Designer, and Mindful Living Coach, and is the owner of Sustainable Lifestyle Solutions. She helps her clients create a calm, organized, and sustainable home and the life of their dreams by utilizing refined design principles, organizing best practices, mental wellness strategies, and a holistic lifestyle approach to sustainability. You can connect with her at www.sustainablelifestylesolutions.com and on Instagram at @this_sustainable_lifestyle.