On the footstool...
On the desk...
On our "appliance island" in the dining room...
On what used to be our garden table inside...
Even on top of the fruit dish on the dining room table. (Go Twins! But boo clutter!)
I had that lovely tray in the first photo, so I decided to use that to corral all of the "I need to deal with this, but not right this minute" papers. Invitations, medical papers to file, stuff for the church newsletter, plus the cords for my camera and Kindle. All in one spot instead of several across the house.
The other paper problem I wanted to deal with was the paper under the printer table. We have a ream of unused white paper still in its packaging, which is fine. But the other random papers under there are from the kids' school work, mail, and so on that are only used on one side. I slide these in the printer when I'm printing off coupons or recipes, since the backside doesn't matter. But they get messed around without being contained.
Enter the shoebox! I covered a shoebox with some pretty shelf liner, and contained that paper mess! I would like to eventually get one for the regular printer paper as well, but someone will have to go shoe shopping first...
Finally, the one part of the paper clutter chaos that was already working for us:
If you ignore the mess in front of it, the three-tier filing system with my purple budget notebook, along with file folders for "Bills to Pay", "Scan", "Shred", and a few other specific file folders, is working really nicely. Everything there has a spot, and it's all organized until I can get to it (I like to do a bunch of scanning and shredding at once instead of bit by bit). At least one organizing system works! Now here's hoping the rest of that paper clutter can be contained...
Stay tuned tomorrow for the craft cupboard (and you might see some more of that pretty blue shelf liner)...
Just wanted to say "hi" to you! I'm participating in the Wait No More challenge too, and I wanted to see what others were doing. Isn't paper clutter the WORST? It really does end up everywhere (love that it was even on fruit dish- so true). You actually came up with the same idea I found about two years ago... a simple tray to put the paperwork in until it can be dealt with- simple and effective! Good luck with the craft cupboard!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Isn't it amazing how the simplest ideas are the best?
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