Organizing with Binders

As this year comes to an end, my resolution is to have more time to enjoy my life and not be overwhelmed by the things I have to take care of. I decided to use binders to organize each part of my life. I tried one Home Notebook last year, but it became to big and bulky and I stopped using it.

I used Christmas gift cards that were given to me to buy the binders. Each binder is for one thing I keep up with.

• Business Ideas
• Budget
• Car
• Cleaning
• Creative (crafts, decorating, etc.)
• State Help (I'm a single mother)
• Employee (handbook, insurance info, etc)
• Food
• Genealogy
• Homeowner
• Internet Items
• Mother
• Nurse (to my kids)
• Organizer
• Patient (my health)
• Santa (Christmas planning)
• Scheduler
• Work (ideas for my job)
• Woman (clothing, makeup, etc.)

I then went through all the paperwork in filing cabinets, etc. Cleaned out the old unneeded papers and put the "keep" papers in the appropriate binders. To me it is easier than using file folders tucked in a drawer. I found clip art for each binder and printed them as labels. One shelf of my bookshelf closest to my desk is dedicated to my binders. I only have three file folders left in my desk filing drawer. Old taxes, user manuals and the file of paperwork from when I bought my house.

I also organized my "Favorites" folders on the internet to match the same topics and when I clean and organize my garage in the spring, I will label each storage bin in the same way. I also cleaned off all the Word and Excel files from my computer after importing them to Google Docs, where I made the same folders/topics.

This may be too much for some people, but it will hopefully help someone out there "control" their paper clutter too! Some people may have fewer "topics" and some may have more. Good luck and Happy New Year 2011!

By tnphoenixrising from Clarksville, TN