We all have paper clutter. It’s one of the hardest areas to manage because it comes from all different areas. Some you need to keep long-term, some you need to keep short-term, others you need to keep temporarily, and ones you want to keep.
Here are my top 7 Clutter-Free Ways To Manage Papers.
Go electronic with all your important papers and scan!
You know the papers I am talking about: tax returns, bank statements, checks, etc… There are many scanners out there. Find one that works for you and work through your piles. If you have a large number of papers to scan, purchase an external large hard drive. Make sure it is 2 TB or more.
Go paperless with your bills!
Contact your bank and set up bills to be paid electronically or set up reminders. If your bank is larger, you will most likely find almost all your companies. Or, you can go and make an auto payment through your credit card. Then, log into the different companies through their website and change your bills to electronic filing. The best way to do this is to make a list of all the companies and write them down on a piece of paper. Go through one by one, write the login information(username and password), account number, and change your paper mail to electronic mail (use the same email address for your bills).
Scan receipts with your phone.
Whenever you get new receipts, scan it right away by taking a picture with your phone. There are many apps out there. In the past, I used Tiny Scanner on my iPhone. I can upload the scanned PDF image to a Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive accounts. It’s great for papers that are not private.
Go paperless with your articles and research.
Use an electronic notebook like Microsoft OneNote or Evernote. I wrote a post about Microsoft OneNote on my Admin Blog. You can create notebooks for your different research topics. You can share with others. In Microsoft OneNote, you can add a password to the notebook as well. I am not sure if Evernote can do that. If you know, please leave a comment below.
Get rid of your printer!
If you like to print out papers from your computer, minimize this by getting rid of at least one printer. I know this may be hard, but you can do it. It will force you to find other ways to save stuff. And, it may help you minimize what you save.
Scan your paper recipes!
If you are like me and love magazine recipes, this one is for you. I wrote a post about how I went digital with my recipes. Here’s the link.
Have a large shredder near the recycling bin!
This one is to help you with mail that comes into the house. Place your shredder near your recycling bin. This will remind you that you need to shred the papers right away, every day. When you purchase a shredder, spend extra for a large capacity shredder, that way you can shred entire envelopes of mail at once without having to separate it.
I hope this gives you some clutter-free ways to 
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Helpful tips, Sabrina! About a year ago I started using Pinterest for all my recipes and haven’t looked back. I love having less paper in the kitchen!
Great idea, Sarah! I’m a big Pinterest fan for recipes. =) Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Get rid of your printer? EEEEK! That one’s just plain too scary for me! I do so much of the others, but that one… I’m going to have to give that one a good think! Hope I’m at least at a B+ if I don’t make it all the way!
I know what you mean. Getting rid of the printer is a big one for me too. I actually did this last year. I had two in my office my husband used one and I used one. We moved him to his office and I started using the double side feature on all my printouts. This has saved me lots of paper and I very rarely use the printer now. woo hoo.
I like the idea of digitizing your recipes. It seems that outside of few family favorites I get most of my recipes online. I need to digitize those family favorites now and store them in Evernote, a favorite app. Thanks for all the ideas.
Good idea, Andi. I seem to recall that Evernote created a recipe notebook template you can use. Good luck.
I need a few days to devote myself into organizing folder on my computer for scanning, learning Evernote completely, and scanning in receipts for taxes. I thought I heard about a program here when you scan receipts it will add them up for you too. Have you heard of something like that Sabrina?
I am all about paperless solutions…I thought I was hard core, until I read your suggestion to get rid of my printer. I’m not quite that brave 🙂
I’m an Evernote fan…how would you compare and contrast Evernote with OneNote?
I did a comparison a while back, Natalie. Back then, it wasn’t compatible with Windows Office. And, after I started using OneNote, I didn’t want to transfer all the notebooks over. Also, my clients use Microsoft Office so it was an easy fit with them also. Thanks for commenting.
Great article Sabrina, I finally went paperless with all our bills last year when our one hold out the Hydro company with deal with finally went paperless. My husband still insists on having his CC bill by mail, but we hardly get anything in the mail these days.
Great job, Jill! I still have 1 local bill I get in the mail.
We combine our shredding and office recycling into one bin – if the paper needs shredding, we shred it, otherwise we just stick in right in the bin. A nice little space saver!
Thanks for sharing, Janet.