Can I tell you how overwhelmed I feel by my clutter? One room that has really been driving me crazy is the kitchen. For the past couple of years, we’ve been accumulating piles of papers in the corners. It looks cluttered and unorganized. Every so often I move a pile of paper from the countertop to the desk, which doesn’t really help matters.
We also have a bench in the kitchen with baskets underneath which I thought the kids could use as a spot to keep their school stuff. In reality, I think they used them for a year, and now the stuff that remains is ancient.
Today I decided to clear the counters and get organized. (No, I did not move the piles to the desk!) I actually gave things homes and threw things away! All the paperwork in kids’ baskets went right into the garbage. The kids haven’t looked at it in over a year. I guarantee there was nothing in there that needed to be saved.
Lesson learned in this process: Touch paperwork once. Throw it away, file it, do whatever needs to be done right then and there. Don’t let the piles accumulate in the first place, and you won’t have to spend hours going through it all and putting it away!