Papers Papers Everywhere!

I have a magazine file folder for each of my 4 children on top of a coat rack with 4 areas/cubbies. All of their stuff, school things go in there.

Our paper handling is as follows-

bills go onto of the printer, where they are paid, largely electronically by hubs every pay period, or as due.

to be filed- i.e. invoices, home improvement, etc goes in a slot in my home office, where it is filed every month or two into a proper filing cabinet.

kid art goes into a storage crate which fits in our bookcase.

announcements, invites, fliers and notifications get inputted in my electronic calendar and discarded immediately. my mom puts these on a cork board near her master calendar in her eat in kitchen, and does a weekly cull for events which have come and gone.

as for enforceability. advise that anything which remains on the counter at dinner, or when homework is done, or at days end will be put through the shredder. enforce. I assure you it won't stay cluttered for long.

Best,
F. B.

We have a kitchen hutch and everyone gets a drawer. Bills go in my drawer. :/ Each person is responsible for cleaning out his own drawer whenever necessary. The kitchen always appears neat and tidy this way.

My boys are almost 17 and 10, and this has worked well for us for many years.

My stepdaughter has a wall rack with large slots - like a mail sorter but large enough to hold a manila folder stuffed with papers. There's a slot in each section on the front where she can write the person's name. Incoming info goes there, and outgoing stuff like signed permission slips goes there too. Give the shortest child the lowest slot. Put an "in" folder and an "out" folder. Maybe a green one for what's to "GO" back to school, red for what you should "STOP" and go through? Write their names on the folder tabs as well as on the front (the side that would be up if it was sitting on the table or the counter) so you know (and they know) whose red folder is whose. Make them responsible for their own folders. You can decide if you want them to put the folders for you in your slot of the rack or in their own (where you will be responsible for checking every day).

We have a basket by the door for everything that's going out to the car - reusable shopping bags, coupons/shopping list, anything to be returned, etc. On the wall near it, there's a little shelf with hooks that holds backpacks. We have a DTR bin in the garage - "direct to recycling" so the junk mail never comes in the door. We have a small bin under my desk on the first floor for regular paper to be recycled, and a shredder in my husband's office upstairs. We also have a Neatworks scanner (which we should use more) that is great for "filing" stuff when you don't need to keep the original, just a copy - receipts, vaccine info from the vet, doctor records, copies of bills etc. It organizes by category & "folder" which is great. It would be great for kids' papers that you aren't sure you want forever - you don't need the original if it's not a real piece of art, but "just in case" you can file it.

I have a little vertical divided rack for receipts that need to be entered in the checkbook or the Neatworks file - when I get a bunch, I deal with them and then recycle or shred the originals.

I think the trick is to have a recycle bin very close to where you work on this stuff so that it's not lying around waiting for you to take it to the recycling area. That was always the big stumbling block with us.

How about a cute basket to serve as an in box for your paperwork? That way all the papers would be in 1 location instead of all over the counter.

I think with an active family there's always a certain amount of mess.

I purchased wall file folder holders like you would see in a dr office outside the door. I mounted them inside my pantry doors. My girls each have their own. There is one for church & extra curricular activities, one for coupons & receipts, one for mom with notices, room mom & PTA things that I need to keep or items that I need to fill out and return. I use clips, on the front of the bins, to post things that I can't lose or need to do soon. In my girls "playroom" we have a shelving unit with bins from Ikea. They each have a large bin that all graded papers get tossed. We go through this bin twice. Once at Christmas break and then again at the end of the school year. It's amazing how things that they had to keep, at the time, no longer seem so important after a couple of months. :)

Good luck!

Accordion file folder.

Recognize that this is one of your hot spots and you'll have to put out the fire there frequently. One thing that can help is a single container for the kids' papers. If your counter really isn't the best place for that, put an "in" bin somewhere else that's easily accessible to them so that it's at least in one pile for you to process and not all over your work space.

I've got 4 school age kids and I'm a PTA treasurer and Sunday school teacher so those all generate a lot of paper (my job rarely requires that I use paper, which is great). I have several "in" bins that all make their way into my master files in my office. Office is in the basement so I have collection spots throughout the house to temporarily corral papers until I can process them.

My collection areas are:

A basket by the front door for all mail...junk gets dropped in the recycling bin under my entry table immediately and every envelope gets opened and recycled when we get the mail. I then periodically sort through the remaining contents, moving them to action files or storage files at my desk.

A basket on my kitchen table for all school stuff. I process all of that every night...I sign and send back permission slips immediately, pop items on the calendar, and then have three clip magnets on my fridge (this week, this month, future) and put anything that needs to go there in the right spot. Reference materials go in a 3-ring binder. Anything else goes down to my desk to be filed or acted on.

I have similar "collection bins" for my PTA and Sunday school stuff, but those are distinctive bags that travel with me. When I'm up at school, if I get a check request, invoice, money, etc. it goes into that bag and that bag gets emptied into a PTA or Sunday school in box on my desk (I have 3 stacking bins...PTA, SS, everything else).

So far this is the best system for me. A lot has been adapted from a wonderful book called "Getting Things Done" - I'm not anywhere close to 100% there with collecting everything that needs to be collected, but I'm much more on top of things than I was even a few months ago. It's a work in progress.

Growing up my parents had a filing cabinet they bought used from the local school district. When we were going through the adoption process for our girls we were out of our minds with papers so we went out and bought one. It was a little pricey (about $200 on sale.) But honestly it is a life saver. We have it labeled one draw for just our daughters, one draw for us, another for bills and the bottom draw is currently empty but will be filled when we go to buy our first house. :)

I have a "school" drawer in the kitchen and each child has their own folder. I also have a bill paying drawer where I keep the check book, bills, stamps, 3 hole punch etc. I also have a 3" binder in the drawer where I keep our bank statements, investment/retirement statements, insurance info etc.

Oh paper is the bain of my existence! Like the ideas below but I'd prefer to make it stop ;)