Planning your paper declutter – What will be affected?

In planning your paper declutter, we will need to look at the areas of your life that are affected by this process – all of the areas that create and use paper. What are these areas?

In my case they would be:

… home, family, my business, my involvement with public speaking group POWERtalk, and my work. Each has
its own paper, reading, writing, current projects, files and deadlines.

Yours may be completely different – maybe you are just dealing with an office. In that case you would narrow your focus to suit your needs and list, instead, the various operations involved.

Before you start, define just what it is that you need to organise and declutter, in your world of paper

Take control of your paper. Defining the outcomes 1. Let’s start with WHY

What do you want to achieve? Why are you embarking on this process?

Is it because you have too much untidiness – untidy stacks of paper, magazine or files? Perhaps you need to declutter. Or is it because you cannot find things efficiently, and a better filing or storage system is what you need? Or maybe you are having difficulty with deadlines, appointments, paying accounts on time.

Answer these questions and you will have one of the bases for defining your outcomes, articulating the dream you have for the time when you are in control of your paper.

Taking control of your paper? Start with goals

What do you want to achieve? Why are you embarking on this process?

Is it because you have too much untidiness – untidy stacks of paper, magazine or files? Perhaps you need to declutter. Or is it because you cannot find things efficiently, and a better filing or storage system is what you need? Or maybe you are having difficulty with deadlines, appointments, paying accounts on time.

Visualise what it is you want to achieve – the look of the physical outcomes, the processes that will happen more efficiently, the feeling of control… and turn these into clearly articulated goals for the process. Either articulate them very clearly in your head or write them on the first piece of paper. Then you can come back to them when decisions and choices have to be made.

The first step in overcoming your problem with paper

The first, and very vital, step in the process of overcoming your paper problem is to visualize success. know this may sound like a waste of time, but it will underpin the whole process. It will give you great motivation, especially through the later steps that might be pure slog, but it will also give you a chance to plan how the finished product will look. And that will be the basis of the way you sort out the problems and then maintain what you have achieved.

So take the time – when you have time – to think or ream – when you wake, or before you sleep, in the shower, while you mow the lawn. Visualise what your spaces will look like when they are no longer cluttered. Dream about what you can do with the time you save not looking for files or papers. Visualise an office system that works, no lost documents; the reassurance that accounts will be paid on time, the feeling of knowing that you will be in the right place at the right time. This is the motivation you will need but also the basis for your planning.

Time Management – decluttering

I have reorganised my office.  All of the files.  All of the supplies.  All of the furniture.

Yes I know I am a hoarder.  That’s another issue!

Nevertheless it was a huge task and has taken weeks in spare moments. 

I am down to the last little items.  But I have to say that the one huge motivator has been to divide the job into small bites.  If I can see success, no matter how small, I am encouraged to continue.  I look, today at the clear floor in front of the cabinet and I am spurred on again to attack the last piles in front of the bookshelves and then it is finished.

It is the cabinet I look at above my computer screen and already I am enjoying the calming effect of tidy spaces and lack of the overwhelming clutter that used to face me every day. 

Small bites, I thank you!