4 Essential Tips For Organizing Paper Clutter in Your Home

The first rule of a paper clutter organizer is - small piles aren’t scary. Don’t let your papers accumulate and turn into a headache, sort them as soon as they enter your house, so you always know what’s in your piles.

Another tip is to keep all the paper clutter stations out of the kitchen, the busiest part of the house. Calendar events get uploaded into the phone calendar. Most importantly, The Minimal Mom sorts papers into four categories:

1) Trash/recycling/shredding. She immediately throws out or recycles any papers that she definitely does not need, including coupons for things she had not been planning to buy anyway.

2) To-do/action items. With things that require action, the rule is “if it takes less than 3 minutes, do it right away”. The Minimal Mom also keeps a clipboard with things that need action but have been postponed so far.

3) To file. Things that should just be stored, like tax receipts, are placed in folders, divided by categories, and labeled, or in the safe. Papers that are accessed regularly are stored separately from the archived documents that might never see the light again.

4) Time Will Tell. Otherwise known as the “slow paper ban”, this bin reduces the indecision and “what if I need it later” stress. This is where things that will soon become irrelevant or things to be looked at later go. This pile is not scary, because nothing in it requires action, and the stuff on the bottom is probably expired anyway.

Tips for organizing paper clutter

This is how The Minimal Mom keeps her house paper-free. Good luck organizing your own paper clutter!

For more organizing ideas, discover these easy kitchen space-saving hacks or this guide on how to get rid of surface clutter.

To see more videos, check out The Minimal Mom YouTube channel.