Why Tackling Paper Clutter Might Be the Most Liberating Thing You Do in Midlife

If there’s one kind of clutter that can haunt you more than any other, it’s paper clutter. By the time you hit midlife you probably have decades of build up in file drawers, boxes, bins and piles. Maybe it’s organized, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it was organized at one time but then life happened and you lost track of your system. But the paper kept coming.

It’s a bit ironic that one of the main reasons we keep paper around is for peace-of-mind, yet the thought of all that paper clutter we’ve purposely kept gives most of us massive anxiety. Our children and the generations to come don’t carry around any of this physical and emotional baggage related to paper. They grew as digital natives and digital clutter is a much less invasive species. Our generation grew up in an all-paper era and many of us are still behaving as if we still live there. Digital files sound nice but getting rid of all of our paper feels like letting go of a lifeline and free-falling.

Midlife is the time to get the house in order. It’s not going to be as hard as you think it is, I promise. Lifting the burden of paper clutter that’s been weighing you down for all these years will set your soul free. Are you ready?

Face The Music

I’m certain you’ve been putting off this paper clutter project for some time now. Because it feels overwhelming and you don’t even know how to begin. Let me ease some of that anxiety. Here’s the truth: for this project you aren’t actually going to organize most of that paper. Most of it will go into the shredder or the recycle bin. The bigger organization project will be the digital file system you’ll set up, but even that will be way smaller than what you are dealing with now.

I know it’s scary to let go. What if you need one of the documents you declutter someday? I’ll tell you how it will go the first time that happens:

1. You’ll have a moment of panic ‘Oh no, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten rid of that!’ or ‘Crap, how am I ever going to find it?’

2. You’ll pause and remember where to access what you need in your digital system.

3. You’ll go into your digital system and remember how streamlined everything is.

4. You’ll locate what you need, send it off (via emil or text) and relish the fact that the whole thing took less than 5 minutes

Activities like Tax prep will no longer be a nightmare you avoid like the plague. Organizing your estate for your future heirs will be a piece of cake. And your home office or workspace will become a pleasant place to spend time being creative and productive.

That’s the future, now here’s what it looks like to get there.

Melting The Buildup

Besides the sheer overwhelm, the other paralyzing thing about tackling paper clutter is not knowing what you should keep and what is okay to toss. This is also the thing that creates the buildup in the first place; when we don’t know, we default to ‘keep’.

This is where I’m going to refer you to a resource that has everything to need to make these decisions. (Apologies if you thought I was going to provide a complete roadmap for your paper clutter here. The actual process I use to declutter and organize paper clutter in home offices is way too much to put in a blog.) I put off documenting this particular process for years because I was too busy organize the information into a useable resource.

But I did finally do it (after fielding many desparate requests!) and put everything you need to know in my Home Office & Paperwork Room Guide. It’s now available to purchase on my website and will take you step-by-step through the journey of how to categorize your paper, what to keep and what to toss, and what is improtant to shred vs. recycle. The devil is in the details in a project like this, and the Guide has all the details you need. 

In case you need a preview: Your paper clutter is going to end up in one of three categories:

1. Keep Paper Originals & Digitize
2. Toss Paper Originals & Digitize
3. Toss

By tossing I’m referring to either recycling or shredding. It’s likely that most of what you toss will be in the ‘shred’ category because it contains sensitive personal info.

Note: even if you have a personal shredder you may prefer to take your shredding to a service like FedEx/Kinkos. You’re going to have a lot! I once had a client who saved every credit card statement, medical explanation of benefits and retirement account statement. It was several decades’ worth of (beautifully organized) paper. The shredding was in excess of 400lbs. I don’t recommend putting 400lbs of shredding through your little-guy shredder!

Trusting New Systems

Once you are free of your paper clutter you’ll be left with a very manageable amount to organize. And you’ll set up a digital file system (covered in the Guide) and back it up. Then you’ll only have three things left to do:

1. Stem the tide of incoming paper clutter by siging up for paperless statements
2. Trust the new system you’ve set up
3. Enjoy your new-found freedom

The reality is that we rarely need to access what we file (paper or digital.) It’s not like we are interacting with the new systems on a regular basis. So it’s going to feel a little weird at first, like an appendage is missing. The good news is you never needed that appendage in the first place! You’ve not only made space for what matters in your office, but also cleared the space that paper clutter was living rent-free in your head. It’s an energizing feeling, and you won’t ever want to go back to the way it was before. Before you tackled that paper clutter ❤️