First steps on how to attack a paper impasse
I just attended a professional event where I was the only one who did not work in commercial real estate development. I had to be very explicit in explaining what I did because there was no context for why I was there!
You organize corporate collaborations? You’re an event organizer?
At least twice I clarified with “It’s exactly what it sounds like; Imagine an office buried in years of paper. I solve the problem of chronically disorganized offices and paper. It’s physical and mental work, creating custom systems for the piles to never come back.” I hope that sounded simple, but for someone inside of that chronically disorganized office, it seldom is...
If you are faced with years of paper in an office or room(s) that you would be mortified to show others, here are two methods for breaking inertia and starting with confidence.
#1. Clump paper into just two categories.
Last week I worked with a woman who had a lot of parts of her home that needed attention. Having had a number of family members die within the last few years alongside other family complications, her home had become an overwhelming depositing ground. The office was the most painful (and pressing) part, and was 100% my comfort zone.
It was just a two hour intro session and we didn’t have much time after touring and planning, but I had committed to giving her a skeleton system she could run with. How were we going to make progress in under an hour in a room you could barely walk into? I gave her a physical stop-gap system that has worked for dozens, if not hundreds of clients.
First I asked her if we could use the file crates in the basement that I saw earlier. She had set them aside for craft supplies and never considered them for the office - especially as crowded as it was.
There was no room to work in the office, so I told her we’d be sorting in the living room. We dropped the bins there and back in the office I pointed out that there were two main projects: the piles out in the open and the storage (stuffed boxes, cabinets, file drawers, shelves, etc.). She was onboard with my suggestion that we bring out one or two piles that well-represented the others.
“Random” is never random to a professional organizer. As expected, these piles contained both:
Things to act on, and things to file away
Very current and old (over one year old)
Things that had existing homes (buried as they may be) and things that did not
With this fresh set of eyes, we were able to create just TWO categories (pictured here) that everything she chose to kept fell under. The two bins we created were:
Active To-Dos & Paid Bills (2019 & 2020)
For Filing Cabinet
I’ve seen variations on this work for just about everyone. The priority was to create two master categories that could catch absolutely every piece of random. Though we got through just a sliver of the paper, she can now ask herself just two questions in order to move a paper closer to its final resting place. There will still be struggles and questions as to how it will all physically fit together, but now she can be decisive where she was otherwise stuck.
This is not a permanent system. Many more files will be created, and many more decisions will be made as to what storage is needed (or should go) in her office, and how pieces of the “active” box can be displayed visually instead of hidden away.
People get frustrated when they think the first question to ask is “does it stay or does it go?” This needs to happen in tandem with a version of what is pictured here, because, what stays all too often then stays in a pile at worst or pretty basket at best.
What are two categories you can use to catch all of your “random” keeps? Have you attempted a version of bins or crude categories yet? Please share in the comments.
#2. Gather all of your paper in one spot.
A vintage YouTube video of mine from 2014, Where to start when organizing lots of paper describes another method for breaking inertia, better suited for people who have paper “sprayed” all over the house! (Someone recently used the word “sprayed” to describe a friend’s office and I LOVE it.) This client had trouble wrapping her head around her paper project because it had spread throughout the house. Our first mission was to gather it all in one spot before making any other decisions.
For some people this would be potentially overwhelming, so I don’t prescribe it for everyone. For clients like her though, it felt right. On one hand, she had more than she realized. On the other hand, she could now see that the job was a finite one.
Do you have paper sprayed throughout the house? Are you embarrassed that your “office” project has become a household-wide, boundaryless creep? Does gathering it all in one spot scare you, or give you hope? Do you even have space to gather it all? If not, how can you make space (trust me, you always can). Please share in the comments and watch Where to start when organizing lots of paper.
