5 Tips for Sorting Those Piles of Papers and Junk

1. Set a certain amount of time each day to work on the sorting If you have a looming deadline and huge piles, you may need to spend an hour a day. If you are planning ahead, the piles are smaller, or you just can't face that much stuff at one shot, choose a shorter time. You will be amazed at what you can get done if you devote even 15 minutes a day to the job. If you succeed in completing those 15 minutes on six days of the week you will have spent an hour and a half! Set a timer so that you know you must work until it rings. That ring will also become something of a Pavlovian reward; when it rings you know you've succeeded in meeting the day's goal. Then cross it off on the calendar, or paste up a gold star. We compulsive pile-makers need rewards.

2. The first step is to go through the entire mess and sort into two basic piles: keep and throw away. You might be able to do some minimal additional sorting at this step, but don't get bogged down on any other goals than those two. "Do I keep this, or do I throw it away?" Other potential categories for this first sort might be: things that go to Goodwill, things that go to the basement (for example, if this is a small pile), or to Grandma's, etc. But your number one goal here is to remove anything that you don't need to keep so that you won't have to handle it again. Oh yes, DO actually throw the one pile out. (Or recycle the paper, etc... but it goes OUT the door.)

Pile everything you are going to keep compactly enough so that you have space for the real sort. You can put it in boxes, bags, or just leave it on the spare bed. But you must also have a large bare space. Maybe you have an extra table you can sort on. Maybe you can pile the stuff on the floor and sort on the bed. You can even do the next step on the floor, but it needs space.

3. Make some labels from scrap paper. I use a fat magic marker and write in large letters across the top of a sheet of paper. One label should say "NOW." This needs to collect the things that have been missing so long that they are now crises. Overdue bills, impending birthday cards you bought and never sent, and other things with immediate deadlines need to go here. These items need to go to your desk, kitchen table, or wherever you deal with such things.

Other labels will depend on your own projects. Examples might be BILLS, RECEIPTS, CORRESPONDENCE, SCRAPBOOK, CLUB A, PROJECT B, COLLECTION C, etc. Begin to sort the huge pile into those categories. Again, don't get bogged down in sub-sorting at this point, or putting things away. It is not efficient if you put one piece of paper in a file drawer if there are going to be ten more to go with it very soon.

Keep sorting until the whole mixed pile is in categories. Every time you come to something that doesn't have a category, make one for it, or else re-examine why it is that you want to keep it. Things will never have a place to go if you don't assign them a place.

This was always one place where my attempts to be neat broke down. I thought categories had to be like the ones I've given as examples above, or the standard ones that came with file boxes. Forget that! If you have DECOR IDEAS use that. If you have STUPID JOKES I LIKE, use that. If you have even two of something it is certainly a category, and even one of something is a category if you are interested enough in keeping it. PICTURES I JUST LIKE might begin with two items, but over time might be expanded and refined to FUNNY PICTURES, SENTIMENTAL PICTURES, SPORTS PICTURES. The point is, if you want to keep something you must assign it a category.

There are bound to be odds and ends in the junk that don't get filed, but do need to be put away. For example, that annoying floppy disk that needs to have the files taken off it and put on your hard drive. Ten rubber bands, three screws, your missing windshield scraper, that card from someone special that you'd like to put on your bedside table, the odd ski sock, your best friend's back door key, and the kitchen utensil you bought last month and immediately lost. Put all these things in one pile of their own.

(You can do step 4 concurrently with step 5, or consecutively in either order.)

4. When all your piles are sorted, begin putting them away. Yes, eventually you have to file that stuff. But it is now in manageable categories. Some of them may be ready to put away with very little work. I find that an easy one to start with is the bank statements. I just put them in order, slip them in the file, and that pile is done! Now I have an open space, which may be just right for sub-sorting one of the other categories that might still be too large.

I'm one who usually likes to do the hardest task first, but I have found that for this sorting project I need to see the success of getting rid of even a small pile. This usually gives me a little bit of incentive to keep working on the task. And even if it all feels horrible, remember, you only have to work until the timer rings today! I keep telling myself, "I can do this for 15 minutes; it's only 15 minutes." If necessary reward yourself for completing the time. Sometimes I let myself read a chapter in a book if I've done my 15 minutes.

If you made labels for piles that don't have file folders, make file folders. If they don't work out later, those labels are just paper, they are not chiseled in marble. You can change them. If a project is too big for a file, get a storage box and label it. But every single pile MUST be put away somewhere.

5. I find that I'm better at step 4, and never get to step 5, which is why I made a set of rules just to deal with it. This step deals with all those things in that odious pile that don't have a category but must have something done with them. This is not the NOW pile, but the odds and ends. Every day, deal with a set number of those. I've learned that I can usually beat myself into doing 5 of them in a row, and it often takes less than 10 minutes to do it.

For example, to deal with the pile described above, get that floppy disk and move those files, and put the three screws in your hardware container. If you have a mixed fastener jar this is one job. If your screws are sorted into categories, and you hate these little jobs as much as I do, you can even make those three screws be three jobs if it means that you can make yourself take care of the required five items for the day. OK, we've done four now. Take that windshield scraper out to the car. You are done for today, and it didn't kill you!

Keep spending your required daily time, and eventually the job will be done. You might even be so encouraged by how close you are to a clean room when you get close to the end that you elect to spend extra time just to get it done.

Finally, it would be really good to get a big box and label it TO BE SORTED. If you just have to pile things up till you get to them, try to make yourself throw it all in this one box. That way, in theory, if something is not put away it will be in this box. Well, all I can say from a life of waltzing between the piles on the living room floor is that this idea helps.

Have I conquered the piles? Not completely, but about once a year the mess is sorted enough that I can actually invite company in without being too embarrassed. If you are not a project/pile maker you just won't understand this article. Some of us will.