How to organize your household

DEATH BY PAPERWORK. I confess. I’m somewhat of a packrat. Ok, if you ask my family, they will tell you I’m a full-blown packrat but that’s not really true. I admit, I do have a problem with papers! I am really bad about saving articles and magazines and don’t get me started on books! And anyone that knows me will confirm I’m involved in way too many things!

But really, the problem isn’t the fact that we save things. The problem is finding it again later, right? I try my best to make sense of my mess. I try to keep the bills in one place, the school papers for each of my kids in another, and now that we have college bills (piles and piles of college bills), I need an entire file cabinet for the Sallie Mae paperwork!

The fact that I have any number of creative projects churning in my brain at any given time doesn’t help as I continually jot down little notes to myself and lists of things I hope to accomplish today, tomorrow, next weeksomeday. I know, I knowSometimes I am my own worst enemy!

I also go to school at night and have piles of my own books and homework lying around. And then there’s all the paperwork that comes with my volunteer work and cards and keepsakes from my friends or family trips that I hope to get into scrap books someday. Bills, coupons, homework, school notices, college loan information.It’s endless!

I’ve tried file folders, boxes, manila envelopes, binders, baskets, you name it, but I just can’t ever seem to get that paper monster under control! Occasionally I tackle the piles and weed out some of the non-essentials, recycling expired coupons and clippings I never got around to addressing but it never really eliminates the piles.

So what can we do to get all these papers in some sort of order? I have found a few tips that worked for me. The key, of course is to force ourselves to learn new habits to stay organized once we’ve organized our stuff.

One of the things that I found helpful was to put all of the kids’ school papers, copies of medical forms, copies of doctor’s notes, and any other pertinent information into a binder with dividers between kids. Depending on the number of kids you have, you may even want to have a different binder for each child.

I find this technique works especially well for sports schedules, team lists, and anything else related to extracurricular activities. Another important tip: Never get rid of old phone lists! If you’re really organized, create a master list of phone numbers and/or email