Now or Later
I try to take care of papers as they come into the house. But I also have 3 kids, a husband, a job, and two blogs. Since I hate hate hate papers lying around, I came up with a simple system. I have a nice leather two file shelf thing by my computer. The top is labeled "To Be Filed", and the bottom is "Pending." When I am finished with a paper (a receipt, a paid bill, etc), it goes into the top file. If it needs further action or I am waiting for a response so I can finish whatever needs to be done with it, it goes into pending.
About once a month or whenever the file gets full, I sit down by the filing cabinet and file all the papers in the top file. I also use that opportunity to go through the pending papers to see if something can be filed or more action needs to be taken.
It works because it keeps me from having to file every day, but it also keeps my counter clear. While we are becoming more and more paperless, we still have plenty of papers coming in that I am not ready to get rid of. And this system doesn't take any more time than it would to throw it in a stack and have to hunt for it later.
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