Streamlining the junk

[Phoebe]

I don't know if this is a call for help or a vent. I need to streamline/organize the papertrail coming into our home. I have no system in place.

1. The biggest culprit is school papers. My oldest is only in kindergarten. My youngest in not yet 1.5. How is it that I have papers coming out of my ears? Weekly newsletters and calendars, permission slips, announcements, hand-outs, homework and that is from school alone. Want to buy a yearbook? Donate to the school library? Volunteer at the school carnival? My preschooler has about half the volume. Nickel and dime me some more. Kill a tree in the process.

2. Parties. I am not popular. What is it with home parties? In the last two weeks, I have been invited to two Matilda Jane (children's clothing shows) and a CaBI clothing party. Is someone trying to tell me something? What is wrong with my sweatpants and my kid's mismatched clothes? My 4 yo has two birthday parties in two weeks. RSVPs are killing my free time.

I have stacks of paper everywhere. I have bulletin boards with calendars for various activities and one master calendar, artwork strewn all over the kitchen, mudroom and den. Saturday, I spent 3 hours shredding old paperwork from filing cabinets. I am not a pack rat, just never got around to it. I don't really have time to do this, but I need to be more organized. I just don't know how to do it! :huh:

[Vishenka69]

Re: Streamlining the junk

I don't even have any kids but can totally relate in being drowned by various random papers that seem to multiply by just laying around. I try to file and shred every other months or so but there's no end in sight and then I'm afraid to file important stuff and try to leave it in a noticable place but eventually forget what that place is/was.

I'm happy if I can find and pay the bills on time. Everything else is secondary. I find that most people will call/email if they don't hear from you by a certain date, so that's what I rely on to RSVP.

Re: Streamlining the junk

Two schools = 2 times the papers. Even though I signed up for the email version of the school newsletter I still get a paper copy. I try to read and recycle. I usually go through the mail and school papers in front of the recycling bin otherwise I never get to it. And I type this as I look at one stack of auction papers to my right and a stack of who knows what on top of the printer.

[mommax3]

Re: Streamlining the junk

All my kids' papers stay in their backpacks until I am ready to deal with them.....usually after the kids are in bed. I try to only handle a piece of paper once (I read that somewhere) so I don't look at stuff until I am ready to fill out the permission slip, do the RSVP, etc. After I fill out my part of the permission slip, I put the information part on our huge bulletin board so I have the details close by....same with party invitations. Classroom and school newsletters go on one side of our fridge so I know where to look for test schedules, etc.

We are mostly through with the artwork avalanche here, since my kids are getting older, and I have gotten very unsentimental about what I save. (as in, hardly anything).

When life gets hectic, one of the first things that happens here is that there is a paper explosion......after my aunt died, I didn't see the top of my dining room table for about six weeks. (And it wasn't because of the lovely table setting, either. ) Good luck!

Sally

Re: Streamlining the junk

I covet Sally's bulletin board.

[Phoebe]

Re: Streamlining the junk

How big is your bulletin board, Sally? Mine is full. I have no refrigerator space except on the front and the kids pull everything off. I have two more boards waiting to be hung. My friend is decorating boards for my kid's rooms so some stuff can go in there. We have lists of sight words, etc that can get out of my space.

My bulletin board and our office are in two different places. Sadly.

Re: Streamlining the junk

A friend of mine has a whiteboard calendar. Her husbands hours (shift work) are always changing and that helps to keep track of it. She has all of the kid activities on there as well.

I think the thing I need to work on is purging. A lot of the papers I have expire and can be tossed.

[mommax3]

Re: Streamlining the junk

My bulletin board is 3' x 4.5'. I have it in the short hallway that leads from the kitchen to the garage. I love, love, love it.



As you can see, I don't worry about keeping it looking nice. No one can really see it, which is the upside to having it in a hallway. Tacked up there right now are DH's call schedule, the schedule for when the boys have to sing at the church where they go to school, my school calendar for the year, their school calendar for the year, summer camp confirmations for the oldest two, and the tops of a few permission slips. There are probably about five things that have passed that I need to throw away.....I love doing that!

On my fridge, I have almost the entire top half of one side available, if that makes any sense. There is exactly enough room for each child's class newsletter along with the school newsletter. I don't like to have stuff on the front of the fridge.....a carryover from when I had little ones and they did exactly what you are talking about.....pulled everything off. I think I do have two pictures Nathan made for me on the front of the fridge right now, though....

For the sight word lists, what about on the mirror of their bathroom? I have done that before with things that need to be memorized.....they can go over it while they brush their teeth.

I tried the whiteboard thing for awhile, but it didn't work for me. I never had time to re-do it at the beginning of a new month, and the ink kept smearing when I tried to add stuff to it. :huh:


Sally

[HouseofWool]

Re: Streamlining the junk

Between daycare and 4K I am stunned by the amount of paperwork that we have in our house. (This doesn't take into account the bajillion articles that dh has printed and then forgotten about.) My most recent policy is to sort the papers standing over the recyling bin. Everything I need gets handled and the 35th reminder/plea to "volunteer" at the sock hop gets tossed. BTW - what is up with dances in elementary school? The kids won't even look at each other.

As for the artwork, I try to record the date (month and year at a minimum) on the backs of them. When the pile gets big, I mail the less meaningful ones out to the grandparents. I find this to be a win/win. I declutter and they get something from their grandkid.

[Phoebe]

Re: Streamlining the junk

Thanks for the photo, Sally. I like the size! Mine looks a lot like yours, just on a smaller scale. I like the idea of not reading the papers until later. I usually pull them out right away to try to get a feel for Avery's day at school.

At the same time, we all just got home and everyone wants snacks, drinks and a new diaper. It is a bad time to concentrate and I end up thinking I will read stuff later and just leave piles. I need to leave it for later. Then I can just rid of it. Avery's teacher uses a lot of worksheets and she comes home with a handful everyday. She freaks if she finds them in the trash.

House of Wool- I was curious about the elementary Sock Hop. The school we are getting redistricted to next year has them. Our current school has a carnival. Seems like a better idea.

[HouseofWool]

Re: Streamlining the junk

There are a lot of activities at his elementary school, but I just don't see a sock hop as being a sucess. I have a vision of all of the boys with shirt tails out, wresting each other while the dressed up girls whisper to each other behind their hands and giggle.

There have been carnivals and other activities. My biggest gripe is that most of the stuff that I would like to do is not at a time that works for us. Our neighborhood has a lot of SAHM and it shows in the planning the PTA does.

[DCJenn]

Re: Streamlining the junk

I have a system that I've instituted for all of us:

Mail is immediately sorted and the junk and all of the envelopes for pertinent stuff are dispatched to the recycling bin.

Bills or items that require attention are put on top of the printer.

Magazines are put in the living room and once a month I take the old magazine to either the gym or to the paper recycling dumpster at the crunchy school.

Bills that have been paid are shredded. the shredded paper goes in the composter when it gets full.

I forced my belvoed pack rat essentially on threat of dismemberment or divorce (or both) to go through every single article that he's copied, downloaded or torn from journals and he had to toss the ones that were available online or outdated. The AAN sends journals every other week (good god, there cannot be that much going on in the world of neurology. I think they all write articles to make themselves feel important) so they do stack up. and I have been known to accidently put unopened yet months old journals into the recycling bin.

I have also requested for every single bill possible that they bill me online. That has significantly cut down on the paper coming into the house.

For the stuff from Nikolai's school, most of it isn't that great. The daycare made art, the school just seems to do concepts like cutting paper into little tiny bits that go everywhere.

Jenn

Re: Streamlining the junk

Just got my new REAL SIMPLE in the mail. It's all about cleaning / organizing. I can see it over there on top of that pile of stuff I need to get to.