Project: Simplify Hot Spot #2: Paper Clutter Results

If I thought last week's hot spot was tough, I was wrong! Paper clutter (Hot Spot #2) is probably my biggest problem. I do not do a good job of purging things. I always think I will go back and look at magazines or I need to hang on to certain papers in case I need them again. They end up just piling up all over the house. After looking at these pictures, it made me sick to see how bad the piles got! While I did not get to dedicate as much time to this as I would have liked to, I did make a huge dent in it. My 9 month old daughter is now mobile and making it tough to turn my head in the other direction for any length of time. She was also very clingy this week and I just don't work as fast with a baby attached to my hip. So I had to go with the flow and do what I could, when I could, and still feel pretty good about the results.

This is my makeshift office. It's in the living room at the end of the couch. All my business and some school papers tend to gather here. In fact, my little table got so full I had to put a TV tray up in front of the couch for my laptop to fit. It use to be on the little pink table!


Now everything is back in it's place. I'm hoping to keep it there.


Behind the pink table in the corner is a nice basket intended for "current" magazines. As you can see, I haven't purged anything in quite a while. I went with the rule of anything older than three months needs to go!


Much better! My plan is to try to read a little of one magazine each day during lunch and as I get through them, copy any recipes, etc. that I want to keep and then recycle the magazine. Sadly these were kept in a really nice Longaberger basket that now has a broken handle because the basket was too full.


Here's my Take Action box. It was filled to the brim with things that needed to be sorted and put where they belong.



In front of the pink table (told you this area was bad!), is a wire basket I tried to contain things in. It too piled up over time.


Now I can actually see what is in there to use it.


Bills! Insurance EOB's! Car registration forms! It never ends! The basket to the right of the pile of envelops practically falling off the desk is supposed to organize all of these. But somehow there is never time to write things on my calendar before they are sorted. So they get stuck in this pile until I have the time to go through them and separate them into the basket. I'm thinking of going "paperless billing" as was suggested for a way to stop a lot of this mail from coming into the house.
Notice the pile behind the clock as well. I will find a place to put paper no matter what!


Not perfect but a definite improvement from what was there before.


Oh the island!! I didn't even take a picture of the whole thing because it was awful!


This tray was put there to keep the clutter down but it didn't work. I ended up filling it and then there were other separate piles all over the island. Again, getting rid of the unnecessary mail before it comes into the house is key!


We can actually use it again!

There were many suggestion made about how to keep the paper clutter under control now that it has been cleaned. I am going to try my best to do them and keep these areas clear. Now to relax and wait for next week's assignment. It's not too late to join Project: Simplify by Simple Mom.

Heidi