Troubleshooting

Alexas_Fotos via Pixabay

One of the things I like best about summer is having time to tackle neglected tasks around the house. Not surprisingly, organizational tasks top the list.

Last week, I tackled the paper piles that had popped up in several spots in my house. A funny thing happened as I sorted through the piles.

I discovered a hole in my organizational system.

Nearly every item in every pile was an actionable item -- something I needed to do, read or file. Although some were time sensitive (bills), others were less so (magazines). None were urgent; those things had already been taken care of. Before sorting, I had a vague idea of what was in each pile (i.e., I knew where all the bills were) but I lacked a system beyond my collection of I need to see it reminder piles.

I discovered that although I'd whipped my mail counter into shape -- or so I thought -- I'd dropped the ball when it came to keeping track of the mail I personally needed to do something with. I'd developed the habit of sorting the mail daily, getting rid of junk, filing catalogs and handing off most of the bills to my husband, who does the lion's share of the bill-paying, but my mail ended up -- you guessed it -- in a pile. These piles took up residence on my dining room table, so they didn't look homeless but, indeed, they were.

Oops.

As I sorted the piles, it became apparent that nearly everything in them fit into one of several categories -- and the the resulting mini piles could be easily contained -- and maintained -- with the right tool.

Enter my handy dandy accordion file (which, of course, I already had because I collect this sort of thing) and which -- even better -- had an open top with no flap to conceal its contents. A few minutes with the accordion file and my label maker and voilà!

Yes, that's a clip sticking out of the top.
It's attached to the front pocket so the bills
don't fall to the bottom.

A new, workable system was born.

Things with the shortest time frames get filed in front, things with medium time frames get filed in the middle and things I just want to keep readily available get filed in the back. The perfect complement to my mini-tickler file (more on that tomorrow), my accordion file had been transformed into a workable system for all of my miscellaneous paperwork.

And it even had room to grow.

It's a process.