The New Year is just around the corner! While we’re hyped about decorating the house, buying presents, and restocking our champagne supplies, decluttering the paper mess is one more underrated but truly useful activity to boost our festive mood. Any doubts? Let’s clear them up!
Why Decluttering?
First, a couple of questions for you. How many times have you brought home a map or a museum (subway/tram/Ferris wheel–you name it) ticket as a souvenir from abroad? Chances are, it happened at least a few times. Now, how many times have you actually looked at them again? If the answer is once, that’s a pretty good result. Finally, do you even remember where you keep them now? Exactly.
The wonderful thing about these symbolic artifacts is that just knowing they’re somewhere around is already comforting, even if we don’t know exactly where. They bring back memories, emotions, nostalgia, and can even spark conversations with those you shared that trip with.
But what about checks? Old invoices? A handout with vocabulary exercises from the Spanish tutor you went to seven years ago? These are the things we inexplicably keep, even though they usually have no significance at all (unless your Spanish classes took place in Barcelona). Over the years, the amount of absolutely useless paper grows exponentially. It clutters our physical and mental space and wastes time when we need to find something truly important among piles of endless something. And that’s exactly where decluttering comes in. It helps get rid of everything you don’t really need, lifting your mood, clearing your mind, and sometimes even freeing up your schedule.
Why Now?
What else do we need just before the holidays if not a proper clean-up? Jokes aside, decluttering isn’t just about clearing the mess; it’s about setting up a system that keeps your documents in order all the time. So the sooner you start, the better.
Moreover, decluttering offers mental and physical benefits as well. It helps you focus better, boosts self-esteem, and may even reduce the risk of developing asthma and allergies.
And here’s one more practical tip from us, with winter on the way: take the papers you don’t need to your country house. When it’s time to relax by the fireplace, you’ll be glad you held onto them for the right reason.
How to Declutter Your Home
Audit your papers
It might seem boring, but you can’t skip this step if you want proper decluttering. Here, you’re to look through all your papers and decide what you need and what to let go of.
The first group should be kept forever. This includes birth and marriage certificates, divorce and adoption papers, legal records, passports, armed forces records, and diplomas.
The second group is the documents worth keeping as long as they’re still needed. These are contracts, receipts, warranties, loan papers, or purchase agreements. Tax records are usually recommended to be kept for up to 7 years after you file. By the way, the IRS doesn’t care if you keep them as hard copies—storing them digitally works perfectly fine.
Finally, the third group consists of documents you likely won’t need anymore.
Scan (if necessary) and throw out
Remember that handout from your Spanish tutor? Without further ado, it goes in the bin (or to your country house), and there’s no two ways about it. The “no longer needed” team also includes invalid receipts, plane tickets, expired insurance, catalogs, flyers, previous work documents, and any other papers that are no longer relevant.
If you think you might need the information mentioned on a certain paper someday, make a digital copy. A scan of someone’s business card with their phone and email is more than enough.
Create a system for your digital files
Getting rid of paper mess but creating digital clutter instead means all your work was for nothing.
Take a look at your Desktop folder, and you might be surprised by what you find. It’s often packed with random images, videos, and text files with strange or duplicate names. You may also come across a bunch of archives you don’t even remember creating—especially email attachments, which are usually compressed as .zip files. While most devices can open ZIP files natively, there are exceptions. No matter what device or platform you’re using, there’s a universal, free online solution that works for everyone, like the unzip tool by iScanner, for instance.
Your Desktop folder is just one example. Go through all your files and folders (especially Downloads), one by one, deleting what you don’t need and organizing the rest. Here are a few simple tips to get started:
- Set up a clear folder structure. Organize files by date, topic, or type—whatever works best for you. Taking a few minutes to create a folder template now will save a lot of time later.
- Give your files descriptive names so you can quickly find the desired one with the help of keywords.
- Keep each file focused on a single type of information. For instance, if you’ve scanned your passport, insurance, social security card, and bus tickets into one file, it’s easy to forget what’s inside a file named “important_documents.” If you already have combined files like this, try using a split PDF tool.
Follow and upgrade your system
A system only works if you keep it active. After decluttering and organizing, take a few minutes each week to review your papers and digital files. Friday evening or Monday morning usually works well.
Regularly delete or archive anything you no longer need, and file new documents immediately to prevent clutter from building up again.
Remember, your system doesn’t have to be set in stone. If something isn’t working as well as it should, make adjustments and refine it to keep things running smoothly.
