There is one critical step left in taming your paper piles: building the system of your dreams.

I would love to say that we have found one miracle system that works inside and out for every single client. But I can’t. We have found some very good thoughts on the subject though that work for the masses. Let’s start with the idea of the type of paper that we deal with daily. There are two main types: Active and Resting. 

Before anyone can make a decision about trimming paper from their lives, a few questions need to be answered.

What does it prove?

What is the reason for keeping it?

Is there a consequence if I don’t have it?

When was the last time I needed it?

Is this information still current?

Could I scan and keep electronically?

I just had the nicest thing happen today. My son left/dropped one of his baseball batting gloves at a baseball complex one hour from home. We had noticed that he did have someone else's glove and one of his own but thought that he just mixed them up with one of his own teammates.  He did indeed have a teammate's glove but no one had his in return. Fortunately, we have learned the hard way with our children to start putting a phone number on their items due to the high displacement factor they seem to possess.

Part of becoming organized is learning about your behaviors. It is much easier to try and work with your behaviors than against them.  There is a great book by Karen Jorgerst- If I Could Just Get Organized! Home Management Hope For Pilers and Filers. We completely agree with her thoughts on the two types of behaviors that people adopt in their lives--piling or filing.

Filers are the highly organized type. They have the neat and tidy underwear drawers, closets are color-coded, and canned goods are alphabetized. And- no that is not me! Pilers are … well,  pilers. They like nice flat surfaces perfect for wonderful, glorious piles. There is a third category that some of us fit into called messies. They are pilers attempting to be filers. They try to use systems that don’t work for their personality or behaviors. This leads to frustration and failure so they let the piles over run their lives.