Anne Lene over at Minimalist Sometimes hosted a 21 day paper decluttering challenge that was scheduled to officially end tomorrow…
The idea was that she wanted to tackle her paper clutter and she was asking others to join her. Although things didn’t quite go as planned for her, the goal was 60 minutes a day working on sorting, scanning, filing and shredding her paper clutter. There were a bunch of other bloggers that joined in. I don’t really have that sort of time to commit to the task these days, so I said I would try for 60 minutes a week… (I was thinking that I would work on it for an hour each weekend that occurred during the 3 week period.)
Of course, I have done some paper decluttering before… but unless you get a good system to keep the paper clutter at bay, it just piles up again… And so it has accumulated in our house once again… all over the place…
Weekend #1
The first weekend I looked at some piles of paper… And I even stacked one pile on top of another… I may have even recycled a couple pieces… Big progress…
Weekend #2
The second weekend I got distracted by finding some bugs in our kitchen cupboards, something I’m not so keen to admit… So, instead of paper decluttering, I cleaned out the cupboards and got rid of any food that wasn’t sealed (luckily only a few things like a really old bag of black rice) and also put few things that I no longer wanted/needed into my donation box.
Weekend #3
This past weekend I decided that I needed to at least get things tidy in the living room, dining room and kitchen before we pull out the Christmas decorations. So I started by collecting all the papers that were lying around in those rooms and started to sort them. I ended up with quite a few things that I could just toss in the recycling bin, but also a good stack of things to file away.
In the end I didn’t exactly get everything as sorted and organized as I would have liked, but things were tidied up and the surfaces were clean and ready for decorations.
And so I have called my paper declutter challenge done for now… But I know I have a long way to go still… Just look at my desk… This should really be my next project…
Have you done any decluttering lately? Do you declutter a bit before putting up the holiday decorations?
All-Round Better Me 
I’ve been working on getting rid of paper at home and my work office. At work, things are going very slowly, but I’m recycling much more than if I were to go more quickly. I’m trying to scan everything I want to save and since scanning is kind of a pain in the butt at work, I’m doing a good job of asking myself “Is this worth scanning?”
In terms of decorations, I’m not sure if I’m going to put any/many up this year since we’ll be celebrating Christmas at other people’s houses–so just getting surfaces cleaner might be a good project for me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, I haven’t gotten to the point of scanning things instead of filing them, but maybe I will soon. We did buy a printer/scanner combo for our house this fall, so I could start doing that.
As for decorations, I can totally understand not getting them out if you won’t be around to enjoy them, but maybe just a couple smaller items so you have a bit of Christmas cheer in the house?
LikeLike
This decluttering is taking forever! I’m pretty sure it’s fighting back! I get one spot decluttered and before I know it, another spot has become completely buried.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha Ha Ha! Clutter fighting back! I definitely have that problem too. That’s why it is so important to get things out of the house immediately. Of course, that’s always easier said than done…
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] the clutter, papers included🙂 – Jena, at All Round Better me, has been getting some of her papers out of the way. – Amy, at More time than money, joining with 60 minutes a week – Grace, […]
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jena, yay for some recycling!! That’s progress! And when something more urgent, like the cupboards comes along, we just have to roll with it! Those clear surfaces look great!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! Yeah, it was progress, so that is good. Now all the surfaces are covered in Christmas stuff; decorations, wrapping paper, cards… But that’s to be expected.
LikeLike
A bit late on this post, but glad I saw it. I try to recycle/shred any leftover papers I’m not using but they tend to creep in without me noticing! Plus, I sometimes work from home which can be challenging in that I have to keep track of certain reports and proposals. Sometimes those project end quickly and some take a while so I don’t want to those them out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is hard to know how best to store papers that you need temporarily for projects, eh? I’m still working on how to do that… I still just have stacks of paper in random places… It never ends!
LikeLike