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Deluge
I am so sick of the deluge of communications coming at me every day. I'm thinking of giving up email, or regular mail, or just throwing away everything that comes home from my kid's school. I can't keep up with it anymore. I'd like to take a blowtorch to our file cabinets. I can't remember the last time we really needed 99% of the stuff in them.
How do you guys manage all the paper (actual and virtual) that comes into your lives? I feel like I'm spending more and more time processing information and less and less time doing ... you know, life.
How do you guys manage all the paper (actual and virtual) that comes into your lives? I feel like I'm spending more and more time processing information and less and less time doing ... you know, life.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bigkrygowski on -
Just saw this the other day. As far as paper we had all bill changed to electronic statements and everything else is sorted into two categories, trash or shred.
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Permalink Reply by BarcaBabyDaddy on -
I compulsively throw things away. For instance, I get 100 emails a day from work. Most of my coworkers will delete 80 of them, keep 20 a day or so for the work week, save 5 a day in an important folder for later use. I delete everything but the most important 2 or 3 emails. Anything else, I will just try and get someone else to forward to me if the situation arose in which I needed it.
I am that way with paper mail at home. Sure, one day I might need a credit card bill because I may have been charged wrongfully for something. But I can always pull that information online. Only things that I feel I need to keep are things like wedding lincense, immunization records. Ya know. The biggies.
Most of the stuff in your file cabinet, like the clothes in your closet, are just taking up space. I used old T shirts for rags, just so I don't end up with 100 t shirts I havent worn in 5 years.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
When it comes to paper, I do a lot of recycling.
I keep one master calendar, and when a newsletter or school calendar comes home I copy over what might be important and recycle it. Every couple of weeks, I sift through the bills/invoices/receipts, pay and file it. I hang onto invites to B-day parties so that I will have the number/address of my kids friends. I'm not organized enough to copy them somewhere safe and file them.
There is a certain number of years that you need to keep some things, like tax documents, receipts that you need for warranties, and I keep my credit card/online bill stuff for I think 3 years or so.
But the March 2009 daycare calendar? Toss.
When it comes to email, I am not as ruthless as I should be. At work I sort pretty fast, but my home email box is regrettably cluttered. Once every few months, I sit down and purge, purge, purge. If it wasn't part of something that I either get paid for about something I'm paying money for (my daughter's OT communicates via email) then it goes :-)
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