Essential Paper Organization Skills
Sorting and Decision Making

Achieving efficient personal paper organization starts with setting up systems that keep you in control on a day to day basis.

Organizing your paperwork at home requires setting up categories. You can learn how to organize your paperwork if you first understand how to make a decision for the sorting tasks that need to be done.

This will improve your ability to organize your personal paperwork

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It is paper work not paper play

Into every life a little paperwork will fall! Even the word paperwork suggests that there is some business that is associated with your personal and family life that is recorded on paper!

Of course a large business or corporation will have much more paper work than a single person but everyone has paperwork that must be organized!

Organizing paperwork means simply that you are organizing the business information of your personal life. Without such personal organization in place you are likely to lead a more chaotic and disordered life that at times might seem to be out of control.

How to make a decision - Action vs Retention

An efficient paper organization system requires decision making. This means that you have to make a decision about what you are going to do with the information on the piece of paper in question and that requires the essential organizing skill of decision making.

There is really only one decision that must be made when you first come into possession of a piece of paper.

After this initial decision there may be some more decisions to be made. Here is a simple system for how to make a decision about what to do with paper.

YES	NO
Place the paper into an action file. There are many actions that you might have to take. You might need make an response or an enquiry, pay an amount owing, or even just study the paper a bit more. Either way you cannot file this paper just yet because the personal business that it represents is not yet finished. What is an action file? An action file is an example of a simple system that you can use for organizing paperwork that requires some sort of action or response from you. A simple desktop file organizer divided into 31 sections can represent the days of the month. Simply file the paper into the date by which the action must be completed. Once the action is completed the paper can be filed. Or magnetic file organizer on the side of the refrigerator or a metal filing cabinet works well too.	The next question is: Do I need to keep this piece of paper for future reference?
	YES	NO
	File the paper in the appropriate category	discard - take care to protect any identity information by shredding personal papers before placing in the recycle bin.

Sorting - Another Paper Organization Skill

Papers contain information, so these organizing tips for how to organize your paperwork are really tips for how to organize the information about your own personal life.

Setting up Categories

Even the simplest life will have some personal information that requires sorting.

Your personal information will likely fall into some common categories that you can use for sorting. These categories can be used regardless of whether your paper organization is in paper file folders or electronic ones on the computer.

Here are some ideas for personal paper organization using some simple color coded categories.

Home	Finances	Income tax	Vehicle	Personal
house insurance house taxes rental or lease documents and agreements financing such as a mortgage	bank accounts loans personal lines of credit investments education, retirement and other long terms savings plans	any and all documents needed to support your income tax return for the year	Your car is a family member too! insurance financing agreements warranty information repairs	Set up a file for each family member that contains their personal health information.

Go back to Home Office Ideas for Organizing Home Office Spaces and the Paperwork of Life