Late Summer Organizing

I'd like to thank our Guest Blogger, Terri Lynn Mabbit of Chaos2Calm for contributing to today's post. This will be the first of three in a series on organizing.

First day of class is just around the corner, and with that comes the mounting pile of paperwork that goes along with it. I asked Teri Lynn a few questions on tips for managing the mess and here's what she had to say:



When is it ok to destroy important papers (7 years, 3 years, 1 year?)?
The answer is all three! The amount of time you hold on to papers depends on the type of paper you have. For anything related to the IRS and your tax filing, refer to http://www.irs.gov/individuals/index.html for specific IRS guidelines. Of course the document retention guidelines for individuals versus business owners will be completely different so be sure to look in the appropriate section. Better yet, If you own a business or have a more complicated tax situation, ask your CPA for a "retention schedule" that will list out all the documents that you should retain. For ALL the other documents here are some questions to ask yourself in order to determine what you need to keep and what you can shred.

Examples:
Checking deposit slips- toss after you double check the monthly statement
Paycheck stub- only keep the December stub, toss the rest after you confirm all is correct, toss the December version long enough to verify the W-2 is correct
Documents to keep indefinitely- Marriage/birth/death/divorce papers, SS cards and numbers, estates, trusts etc.

What do you recommend for home bill and all the frivolous snail mail management?
There are only three types of paper that come into our life:
*Paper that needs to be tossed
*Paper that needs to be filed
*Paper that requires some action on our part ("to do")

Although Junk mail is a problem from an environmental standpoint it's not the cause of our paper disorganization! The real issue is that most of us have a breakdown in our paper management systems. We don't know what to file or how to file it, we don't know how to properly manage our "to-do's" and we mismanage our time. This is the true cause of the paper backlog on our desks, not the junk mail. A proper paper "flow" with a working file system, project management or "to-do" system and big trash can will take away our junk mail woes. This doesn't solve the environmental impact of course but that is another discussion!

Thanks Teri Lynn for this intro into paper organzation! Stay tuned for more tips!