School has begun and the paper takeover is a very likely threat.Although there has been a significant decrease in paper due to our community's effort to cut down, we still receive so much paper coming through our front door and it's such a challenge to to keep our house in order and avoid the ignored stacks of papers.
How do you keep all your paper's organized? From the teachers' parental requests needing a signature, to the receipts of daily purchases, to the timeline or family tree that is in due in a a couple of days or weeks, to the invitations to birthday parties, or to the schedules and lists that might need to be viewed several times in one week. How do you keep organized?
Do you have a central wall or section of the house that enables school work to be organized? How do you get your sons or daughters to events on time? With the multiple fifth grade activities planned, weekly soccer practices and games, drama plays, to the blast of activities the kids may have, how do you keep organized? Please share with us your tips!
How do you keep track and get your kids to daily events as well as stay on top of all the paper inflow from your family's daily living as well as your kids' school work? We would love to learn from you!
How do you keep track and get your kids to daily events as well as stay on top of all the paper inflow from your family's daily living as well as your kids' school work? We would love to learn from you!
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I need help organizing my normal paperwork :) I am interested to see what others say
ReplyDeleteMy best tip is to pick one spot and keep all papers there! Even if they aren't organized, at least you know where they are. It is easier for me to have one big ugly pile of paper in one place rather than many small piles scattered all over the house. I try to spend 5-15 minutes on it every couple of days. Sometimes all I do is throw away things that have expired i.e. flyer for school events, coupons. This can cut my pile down tremendously. Looking forward to other ideas!
ReplyDeleteSue
The insides of my cupboards in the kitchen serve as point central for the school papers I need constant contact with (calendars, menu, phone #'s, spelling list, special sounds and phonics blends, just to name a few) I tape them in there, tape new ones over the old, so I now have them 'recorded'. And throw the entire pile out after the year is over! No one but me opens my cupboards (usually) and I open them a lot, so am reminded A LOT.
ReplyDeleteReceipts, ALL receipts, go into one envelope for each month. At the end of the month, they are labelled and stuck in the file drawer. We have several years of receipts...guess its time to toss out some. However, I was able to return an aero bed to Costco that had a glitch after 3 years because I had the receipt!
Mail is gone through daily and mostly thrown right into the recycle pile!!
Family calendar in the laundry room!
A nice basket, hidden in my bedroom, with all the other 'stuff' (invitations, tickets to future events, coupons I know I'll use, etc).
Its not perfect...but so far its working okay for me :-) Im looking for new ideas ALWAYS!!
I put everything on my central calendar and in my computer and recycle the paper. As far as coupons I now keep these in my car so that when I am out shopping i have the coupon with me! i used to keep these in an envelope in my desk drawer with my gift cards and that never worked as i don't plan ahead so having them with me is great and not in my purse even better!
ReplyDeleteI'm still learning myself.
ReplyDeleteWhat DOES work for us, eliminating paper, is going thru the mail right when we get it. The junk doesn't even make it in our house, it goes right into the recycle bin outside. For some reason, that feels really good! :) Not bringing in extra junk! haha.
Hope more people post with ideas! I'd like to know.
I feel like I am fairly organized but I never seem to have enough room to keep all the paper in my life organized. I dream one day of having one room in my place devoted to keeping all the paper in my life organized!
ReplyDeleteAs for the things that help me stay organized.....
1. I have one drawer in my bedroom dedicated to incoming bills and mail stuff that I go through once a month. I file away the paper that is not a bill but is important.
2. On-Line Bill Pay really helps to lessen the paper that does come in. This can be a great solution.
3. I try to store most information on my phone, on-line calendar, and google docs to help eliminate extra paper.
I am always open to new ideas in this area!
Thanks Sharon for getting us to think about this!
Thank you for all your great ideas! We can certainly learn from one another and we all have different techniques that work for us. Being a person who needs organization, but unable to keep four people and such an amazing amount of paper coming into our house, it really is difficult to funtion if all is not in order. The mail is taken care of quite easy and each piece has it's place. It is the Tuesday school folder, ALL the art projects, ALL the sports and drama schedules, ALL the homework retunred, ALL the announcements for future events including birthday parties and fund rasiers and the lot. It can be very overwhelming. Next month I will have another post on some other organizational tips!
ReplyDelete