31 Days Of Organizing & Decluttering: Day 21

There are only 10 days left in this challenge!  We have made significant progress in our homes!  Way to go!

Do you dread paying bills every month?  Do you hate sitting down to a mess and trying to find the bills in the piles of paper clutter? Is your office cluttered with supplies, paper, a messy desk, and gadgets?  Can you find the items you need, when you need them? Well, hopefully after today the only part of paying bills you will dread is simply the money coming out of your bank account!

Today’s organizing and decluttering challenge is to organize and declutter your office, including your desk or area where you pay bills.

Here are some tips to help with organizing and decluttering your desk and office:

• How much time do you have to devote to decluttering?  If it’s 15 minutes, DO NOT throw everything on the floor and try to start from scratch.  If you only have 15 minutes, surface clean the desk and be done.  If you have longer, plan accordingly!  Remember, it’s not that you get everything done, it’s that you are happy with what you can get done.  One step forward is better than doing nothing!
• Do you have some trash bags handy or a big trash can?  You will need one!  If you have a paper shredder this should come out now was well.
• Do you need everything on that desk and in your office?  Any extras that don’t belong in that area need to come out.  When you have a tidy work space, you will be more efficient.

                                                                                                  

• Do you use each item every day?
• What could possibly go somewhere else?

• What could be thrown away?
• Does anything need to be ran through the paper shredder?
• Do you need an organizational tool to store your office supplies?

• Do you have duplicates that are unnecessary?  What can you get rid of?
• Grab a child and give them a piece of paper to test out all pens, pencils, markers, etc.  If they don’t work, they go to the trash!  My kids actually like this job and it’s kind of time consuming if you have a lot of supplies.
• Put like items together.  Gather all pens and pencils and put them together.  The same goes for notebooks, printer paper, and office supplies.

• If you have a pile of papers, file them by category.  It will be easier to find them later.  I read a stat the other day that really resonated with me:  we only look at the paper we keep 20% of the time.  That means most of it will never be looked at again.  I have a paper problem…I’ll admit it, but this little stat made me really think about the important things to keep and what to get rid of.

• If you have drawers in your desk, organize them by what is most important on top, followed by the next of importance.
• If you have “pretty” things on your desk, consider adding shelving for these things so you have more work area.  You can still enjoy them but have more space.
• Make sure when you sit at your desk you can reach your printer, fax machine, etc.  If you can’t you will be up and down and not as efficient when you are working.  This also goes for filing cabinets and anything else you use regularly.
• If you have a bunch of sticky notes, get them together and add the information to your calendar or make one list either on your phone using EverNote or a similar app so they are all together.
• Do your cords need organized or tied together to eliminate some mess?

• Do you need a bulletin board to store papers that you use on a regular basis?  Just be careful of the clutter!

• Your bills should be kept together in one place.  This can be a basket, bin, whatever you like as long as it’s big enough for all to fit inside.

• Write down on your calendar when you need to pay bills.  I like to pay mine twice a month.  When I worked outside the home, I would pay bills the day after I got paid.  It worked really well and it saved me on late fees.  Can you set any bills up on automatic payment with your bank?
• For your bill paying area, make sure you add stamps, envelopes, a few pens your return address labels and a calculator.
• Do you have old bills or those little payment books that need shredded because you are done paying them and don’t need to keep them.   If you do keep them, I have found that by using binders and dividing the bills up by category such as cell phone, electric, etc really keeps them organized.  I pay the bill, use my paper punch to add holes and file accordingly.  Very easy to find something if you need it later on and also easy to know when it’s time to get rid of those items, they’re filed by date and easy to get rid of what you can.  File them right away after you pay bills and you don’t have to look at them again.
• Are you saving money?  If not you, I highly encourage you to set up a budget.

I don’t have a true “desk” but I have a table that collects papers, my printer lives on it, and sometimes the laptop gets to rest there for a day.  I’m hoping to see some clean desks later today!  You can do it!  One step at a time!

Don’t forget, in case you have missed any days in this series, here they are!  (Don’t worry you can jump in right where we are in the series and go back later if you want to catch up or just finish out what we’re working on with us!  I’m so happy that you are joining us in organizing and decluttering your home!)

Day 20 Update:   Day 20:    Day 19 Update:    Day 19:    Day 18 Update:   Day 18:   Day 17 Update:    Day 17:    Day 16 Update:    Day 16:    Day 15 Update:    Day 15:    Day 14 Update:   Day 14:    Day 13 Update:   Day 13:    Day 12 Update:    Day 12:    Day 11 Update:    Day 11:     Day 10 Update:     Day 10:    Day 9 Update:   Day 9:    Day 8 Update:    Day 8:    Day 7 Update:    Day 7:   Day 6 Update:   Day 6:     Day 5 Update:     Day 5:     Day 4 Update:     Day 4:     Day 3 Update:     Day 3:     Day 2 Update:     Day 2:      Day 1 Update:     Day 1:  

**The links in this post are my referral links.  When you order a product through this link it may result in a small commission, which helps me pay the cost of running this site, but does not add any additional cost to you. Thank you!  You can read my disclosure policy here.