After building wall shelves & buying 6 filing cabinet drawers for my small bedroom, the CLUTTER IS KILLING ME!

Question

If you are a good organizer, please give me your suggestions. I hold on to every paper and have a folder in my filing cabinets for every single subject of my life...including "intimacy" "24 hour fitness" "diet" "fitness" "academics" you name it...I cant put away clothes in the event that "I might need it one day, or use it during a fat bloated day" and the worst thing about all of this is that I cant do any work in a cluttered environment...I get overwhelmed, lose it, and then procrastinate until I get a bad grade or miss a deadline. Please- any advice that may have changed you from a former-clutter bug to an evolved simplifier, I would love to hear about your strategies.
Thx a mill.

Answer 1

I used to do that. I had saved every love note/phone number given to me. Anything that I bought that came with warranty info or manuals. Etc, etc....
First DO NOT SCAN THINGS INTO YOUR COMPUTER! This will take so much space, unless you have a giant hard drive and lots of memory.
Second, you need to sit down, preferably with some one, to help you decide whether you need to keep all that paperwork. Most likely you do not. I recently did this with my husband. We emptied out like 4 drawers of stuff that we didnt necessarily need. You are supposed to keep pay stubs until the next tax year. Tax info for 7 years, and bills on record for 3. Thats what I live by and will follow forever.
IF you really need to keep all the folders, I suggest you tone them down a bit, you do not need a file for every single aspect of your life. Keeping track of academics can be important. But if you have every paper you wrote and assignment you have gotten, YOU DONT NEED THAT. If you must keep some things, keep some papers you are really proud of. Keeping everything of your life in filing cabinets can seem OCD.

About the clothes, I believe that if its a timeless piece, vintage, or something that symbolizes a time if your life. Buy a plastic tub and label it. Put it out of reach or into a storage area. If you have clothes that you havent worn in so long you cant remember when you wore it last, make a box or basket to put it in and GIVE IT TO CHARITY! There are alot of people that could use them that are less fortunate. If you must keep things, divide them out, make a plastic tub for summer and one for winter, when the seasons change (depending on where you are), put one season away, and get the other out.

Last but not least, you say you cannot work in a clutter filled env., make a room or space (if you have it) that is completely minimalistic. If you bring work over there, take it back with you. That way, there will never be things gathering in that area. I do this with my desk at home, I bring tons and tons of papers from work home, to put into books and whatever, WHATEVER I pull out of my bag for work goes BACK INTO my bag.

I hope this helps! If not you can always google a professional to call and ask for advice.

Answer 2

I was overrun with papers at one time.
I bought a paper shredder(with the garbage can) and went thru a couple of boxes a day til I had shredded all non essential stuff--which was pretty much all of it lol.
I keep the shredder in the kitchen where it is used on a daily basis by my whole family.
I hate laundry, so I don't have many clothes--once a week I have 1 load of whites & 1 load of darks. Any clothing that has sat in my closet unworn for 6 months goes into the donation bin or the garbage depending on my mood. find 'homes' for things---a place for everything & everything in it's place-- and when you use it--put it back where it goes.
I despise clutter but have to live with it as I have 3 teenage sons & a hub who do not put stuff away. for example--on this puter desk I am seeing a hairbrush, a box of q-tips, a wooden tiki mug, a calculator, a drumstick, a clipboard, a wallet, manicure scissors, empty food wrappers, a thesaurus, a book on animation,a broken box of springs & things, a computer motherboard, a dry erase marker a stack of burnable cd's & a bunch of cords. Drives me crazy.
I work full time so I don't have the time or energy when I get home to clean up after them. The only places tidy & organized in this house are my side of the bedroom & my art studio.

Answer 3

Go high tech. That is what the rest of the modern world is doing. Scan all your documents and pictures with a high quality scanner and save it onto computer disks or on a flash drive. Once on the backup disk or flash drive, lock the copy in a fireproof safe. Now you can shred all those aging paper files. If you ever need a copy of a document, you can just print it off the disk.
I bought a 16 gigabyte flash drive that is about the size of my thumb. I could copy a whole city library onto it.

Beware of low-intelligent people who will tell you not to scan your documents into your computer, because they have a dinosaur computer that is thirty years old or no computer at all and have no clue what modern technology can do.

The banks are scanning your checks and deposit slips. This is the reason that you can only get a printed copy on line, because the bank scanned it and then destroyed the original paper copy. Most large corporations and state governments are doing this.

Answer 4

Ok its not the clutter it YOU ! Pull yourself together and stand still and focus on one thing like the desk now where do the objects on the desk need to go ? Remember One at a time my dear if its paper work needed to be filed get the paper work organized first then the folders a-z. Please learn to throw away or copy to a cd or floppy to save space.
Don't go to another job just stay on the one your on and in no time you will be done! FOCUS One corner at a time.

Answer 5

I think Sri Vidya Rajgopalan has given the correct answer. But the Answer is very long. Let me explain you in short. Ram built a Bridge instead of ship because he thought, if in the war with Ravana more army of Varana is required then it will be easy to bring reinforcement through a Bridge Than to send ship.

Answer 6

1

Answer 7

I can't address the entire problem-- I'm working on it, too!
One thing that has helped me..... I have a box in the garage where I put stuff that I have to think twice about-- if I ask myself if I want it-- it goes in the box. The next donation group that calls gets the box.
My "push" was cleaning out my father's house after he died. I do not want to have my kids do that! What a mess!
other ideas....
My articles et cetera for my Masters-- they were more than 10 years old and definitely out of date. --out Textbooks-- out-- cookie cutters-- out-- I'm not going to be making cookies anymore!
Another technique I've heard of-- pack stuff in boxes-- stack boxes in closet-- if you haven't touched them for -- say a year-- pitch the whole thing.
Clothes-- asked similiar sized ladies over to "shop"-- worked for me....
you get the drift.
Do get a handle on it-- you'll be much better off..... truly!
good luck

Answer 8

Try to web sites;
FlyLady.com
Messiesanonomous.com