Paper Purge I - Clearing the Clutter

Secondly, label those boxes: To Do, To Pay, To Read, To File, and To Recycle. Make sure your garbage bag is handy for any oddities that you may find as well.

Next, sit down and go through all of the papers, one by one. Everything should fit into one of the first four - if not, then it's To Recycle.

To help you with deciding To Recycle or not, answer the following questions:

1 - Do I really need this?
2 - Do I really want this?
3 - Is this too late to deal with?
4 - Do I have time to deal with this? (ie: reading)
5 - Will I ever use this?
6 - How much will this cost me to store this?
7 - Is this a duplicate?
8 - Do I still need to keep this for tax purposes?
9 - Does anybody care if I do this?
10 - Can I live without this?

If you can answer no to any of these questions, then it belongs in the To Recycle box.

These ten questions have pretty much always decided for me what to do with the paperwork I have found. For instance - my recipe collection. I had little bits of paper everywhere of recipes that I had scribbled down, cut out or pasted onto a larger piece of paper. I didn't want to throw them all out - it had taken me so long to collect them! But when I asked myself, "Will I ever use these?" I had to laugh. I couldn't remember ever going to look for a recipe in my file - I would just save time and look for one on the Internet instead. So - I recycled the whole lot - and cut down the paper I had been carrying around by over five pounds!

Once you are done, you should have four fairly small piles, and one huge one (To Recycle). Whew! You've finished the first section of the Paper Purge - get ready for part two on September 1, 2000. Congratulations!

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