The Easy Way To Reduce Paper Clutter

Paper clutter is the worst.  It starts creeping in my home & before I know it, I’m up to the ceiling in papers!  I finally decided to take some action to significantly reduce the amount of paper clutter in my life & I’m sharing my tips for getting rid all the paper with you today.  Oh, & it’s incredibly easy too!  You can start implementing it right now!

But first….confession time.

Paper clutter has been a nuisance in my life for quite some time.  I swore up & down I wouldn’t do it, but I actually moved a huge basket full of paperwork to our new house.  I mean, who wants to move papers?!  I could justify it by saying that they were important papers, but the truth is, I really don’t know.  Store ads from 6 months ago were mixed in with important paperwork & ain’t nobody got time to sort through all of it, so off it went to the new house.

Somebody had to make time to make sure this never happened again.

Besides being a buzzkill hanging out around the house, paper clutter is just simply chaotic.  A chaos that can be wrangled in with this 1 simple step:

Throw it away!

Now, I’m not talking about your important paperwork or your best friends wedding invite.  I’m talking about all of those unnecessary papers that just somehow show up at your house.

Another confession…

As much as I love the internet, I’m not huge on online bill paying.  I still like to receive a paper statement in the mail.  I know it’s probably adding to the clutter, but I don’t care.  This is why I’m not going to tell you to go paperless. 

But!

If you’re like me & still like to get paper statements, you can throw away the approximately 10,000 other papers that come with the statement, including the envelope if you want!  You know it’s never just the bill that comes in that envelope!  Throw those out & keep the bill.

Now, what should you throw away?

Everything that isn’t important or entertaining.

All of those credit card offers that you’re not going to accept in a million years?  Gone.

Advertisements for local services that you don’t need or want?  Gone.

Store ads at stores you don’t even shop at?  Gone.

Etc., etc. to infinity.

Now, on to the stuff you might need/want:

Deal with it!

Give yourself a time limit to deal with all of those things that you plan to throw away later, like the local newspaper, credit card offers or local services.  Once you take action on whatever paper item, then throw it away!  In our area, we get a free weekly publication in the mail & I had a bad habit of reading them and then hanging on to the paper forever.  Not anymore.  Once it’s read, into the trash it goes.  When it no longer becomes of any use, it’s gone!  Magazines are the same way.  Once they’re read, away they go!  There’s no use in holding on to something that doesn’t benefit your home space in any way besides to clutter it up!

Paper clutter can seem overwhelming, but with my simple tips & tricks, you can reduce the amount of clutter in no time at all!

What are your best tips for getting rid of paper clutter?