Elbie at Trig dot Net

Tue, 07 Mar 2006

A place for everything, and everything in its place

My place is a veritable mess. I talk about it occasionally, but I rarely get down to actually doing anything about it. Well, my motivation is a bit more important this time. I need to find all the documents I need to do my taxes that I've accumulated over the year.

By an large, I have no filing system to speak of. Sure, I have a place where I stick receipts, and bills and stuff, which is to say random piles on my table. Things that need to stay out, because they're important go on top. But then other things come along and piles get shuffled and merged and moved. Currently, I have several fairly tall piles that have been moved off the table and on to the floor, so that I have room for other piles on my table. So... no filing system to speak of.

So I need to start with my filing cabinet, and clean that completely out, then refill it with a filing system. This system has to be simple, or I'll never stick to it. So what I'm doing is just having a bunch of folders for a given year. Anything non-financial oriented goes elsewhere. Receipts that are needed for warranty purposes go in their own folder. Correspondence that I want to keep, say letters from my girlfriend, go in their own folder.

So that part is mostly done. And that's an excellent starting point. Because now, when I look at a piece of paper in one of those piles, I can either file it or throw it out. None of this to be sorted later crap. Books should go on the bookshelves. CDs and DVDs should go on their shelves.

Well, except that shelf space seems to be at a bit of a premium. I need to really cull a lot of the DVDs/books/comics that I've accumulated. I don't have space for all of that stuff.

Anyway, we're off to a good start at least.

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