Taming Our Paper Files

I ordered and received Maria Gracia’s My Oh-So-Organized Filing System. Yesterday, Jay and I completely emptied our filing cabinet, and took everything into the dining room. He got one of our plastic packing crates for trash, and one for items needing to be shredded, and we set to work. We put the filing system’s labels on file folders, according to our specific needs. Then we went through every single hanging file, file folder and sheet of paper we own. We discarded enough to fill our trash crate, and put some into the shred bin. Everything else went into appropriate folders. The process took six and a half hours, and we were exhausted by the time we finished…but now, we can literally put our hands on any single piece of documentation in seconds. It is so worth it to have spent the time. The system is easy to use, as we discovered today when we had a few stray items to file. I put labels on three drawers of the filing cabinet until we know where each category is by practice/use. The fourth drawer is for notebooks for my job, which were taking up floor space until this morning. I felt a huge sense of relief when I realized that nine years of tax documents are arranged by date order, newest first, in one single folder that is not bulging, with paper falling out of it. That was when I knew this system is a keeper. The extra file folder labels that we do not need currently are stored for future use, as our needs change. This is one more area of disorganized clutter we no longer have to deal with, and it is so welcome.

Today, we took a complete, paper and pen inventory of food items, cleaning supplies, paper products and toiletries in the entire house, and I’m going to use that information to compile a master shopping list, and a price book for grocery shopping; it will also be turned into lists of the contents of pantry and cabinets for easy reference and tracking. We will mark items off as they are used, to avoid buying duplicates of things we don’t need. For instance, we have 8 bags or other containers of pinto beans. This supply should last a few YEARS!

A VERY Handy Piece of Software

Like most people who surf the internet, I have a list of sites I visit frequently. The other day, I found WebMon. This little gem helps me stay sane, already. I simply added my list of frequently visited URLs, and each time I start my computer, it checks for updates to those sites, and I double click each one to open it in my browser. I can add new sites any time.

Since I am interested in organizing and frugality these days, I am finding a wealth of new sites on these topics, and reading new content is a breeze with WebMon.

Quick Tip…

This tip is hardly new….but it is new to me. I actually found this yesterday online, but I discovered it for myself this weekend. I have never liked folding contour (fitted) sheets. They always ended up in a ball, were never neat, and were awkward to store. So I did a quick Google search for a video on how to fold them, and found several. Once I had the contour sheet folded, I decided to stack it with the flat sheet and a single pillowcase, then I put the entire stack into the second pillowcase and folded the open end of the second pillowcase over. Now, our linen closet has ample room for storing six complete sets of linens on a single shelf, and there is no need to search for matching pieces of each set…and the contour sheets no longer fall off the shelf. Inspired, I think.  To keep your linens fresh, place a fabric softener sheet in each of the containing pillowcases. The really nice thing is that I can grab a single case and have the complete set of linens to make the bed. I can also easily store extra linens in the guest room without using much closet space.

The 13th Juror…?

I was reading a news story on CNN yesterday, and noticed a “survey” called “The 13th Juror. The question asked was, “Is (name of person) guilty of murder?” This bothered me greatly. How on earth is anyone supposed to be able to make such an assessment when no evidence has been seen by the person asked the question, and no testimony has been heard, (excluding what is found in the media, which is sometimes biased)? The whole idea gives me the creeps. Maybe I’m old-fashioned.