Help! I’m buried under paper and I can’t get up!
So here’s the deal. I promised to write a post on BlogHer.com about plastic-free organizing tips next week. But I have no business writing any such thing. Just take a look at my desk:
I’ve been trying to organize my office space ever since we moved here in 2005, and it’s just not happening. Paper, paper everywhere. I’ve been working to reduce the amount of paper mail I receive. I get most of my bills online and don’t print them out. And yet, my desk is always full of paper — to do notes, meeting notes, contact information, flyers, business cards — and I just feel overwhelmed. (That photo? I just took it this morning. Last week, my desk was even worse before I went on a rampage and recycled a whole bunch of stuff that had “expired.”)
So I want some ideas. Some systems for clearing the clutter. And if you have a blog and have written about this topic, I’ll totally give you full credit, link to you, and say how great you are!
The trouble is, many of the organizing and simplifying ideas I read in magazines at the check out counter involve buying a bunch of new stuff. Plastic bins. Plastic trays. Plastic business card holders. Check out the home page for the Container Store:
Every item is made from plastic. I’m not interested in buying new plastic. I’m not really interested in buying anything new at all.
How can I simplify, reduce, and organize without accumulating even more stuff?
Here are a few more photos to show you what I’m dealing with here. First, the full space. Can’t put anything on top of the shelf in the window because that’s Arya’s area. She loves to lie there and look out at the world.
That pile of stuff on the floor — always there and usually bigger. Stuff I don’t have a place for.
And here’s what ends up happening to the bazillions of business cards I collect. Useful, right? But I don’t want a plastic business card holder. Would love to figure this one out before the BlogHer conference next week, where I’ll inevitably end up with a whole lot more unless I can figure out a better system. (Write contact info in notebook and hand back the card? Seems like it could take too long in a room full of women all passing out cards.)
Can you guys please help? What do you do to reduce clutter on your homes? How do you manage piles of paper, or have you gone paper-free? Do you have instructions for DIY organizers that don’t require a lot of new stuff? Any and all ideas are welcome!
I looked at those container store ideas and tried to imagine what other materials could be used. Baskets can be wire or wicker and with or with our cloth. Closed items can be in glass jars ranging from baby food jars to canning jars (various sizes of mason or ball jars) to other glasswear)
You can recycle used jar candles by removing the wax (maybe keep or discard).
What about metal tool boxes or tackle boxes? Metal ice-cube trays.
Mesh grocery or laundry bags (small size) instead of plastic pencil cases.
You could punch a hole and use a binder ring (you can buy them unattached in different sizes)
For business cards, I just type the information into a Word document. Then it’s easily searchable to find what I need and I can recycle the business cards.
I do the same thing since I don’t have much space in my tiny San Francisco apartment. Sometimes I’ll just take a photo and then just send it to myself.
Use http://www.xambox.com to automatically file your papers.
I just realised I posted the completely wrong link before… but since you don’t have an iPhone, it is no longer necessary 🙂
You could always try the Windows Marketplace and search for “Business card reader” and have a browse through the results – you might find it more expensive than the others, but still probably cheaper than a stand alone card scanner (which would likely come with plastic packaging). As for AT&T, I’m in Australia so we don’t have that issue!
In regards to your comment on OCR for business cards. I believe that if you have either an iPhone or an Android phone you can download an app that will convert business card details into contact details automatically.
iPhone link here: – costs money, but not a whole lot
I can’t quickly find one for the Android based phones out there but I’m sure they exist, and they’re probably cheaper than the iPhone version 🙂
On the whole they won’t be perfect, but it’s a start!
Also – it appears you have a MFC there too… do you know if it came with software to send incoming faxes to email?
Hi Dave. Unfortunately, my phone is not iPhone or Android. It’s Windows Mobile. I have it because I wanted to support Credo Mobile rather than AT&T or the other mainstream phone companies.
I don’t know if my MFC will send faxes to email, but I receive so few faxes, it really doesn’t matter. I may get one a year! I use it more often for scanning.
BPOD, thank you thank you thank you! I just checked the site. I was worried that Evernote was only for Mac, as Unclutter seems to suggest. But it's not. It's also for PC and Windows Mobile, both of which I have now. Holy cow. I can't wait to come home tonight and try it out.
And I'm looking forward to reading other articles on that site. Thanks for linking to it.
Great ideas, everyone else. Any instructions for creating these "easy" DIY systems? Pretend I'm not very smart because in this area, I'm not!
Petra (and Jen because you were going to say it too) that's an AWESOME idea! This is why I need you guys. Here I was thinking about writing down the info when I'll totally have my camera with me. I wonder if there's a way to convert the images to PDFs that can be read by OCR software?
We have a business card scanner at work, but I'd love not to have to bring home the cards in the first place.