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February 2014 Newsletter
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In our normal yearly calendar traditions, February is off to an unwanted start with Puxatony Phil seeing his shadow bringing us 6 more weeks of winter, but we still have Valentine's Day around the corner and can look forward to hopefully celebrating a day of love with those who are special to us! 

In the world of organizing, the annual calendar also has different themes for each month. As we are coming out of January (Get Organized Month), February brings in Archive Your Files Month. Taming paper is something that everyone has in common as every household and business have some sort of paper to deal with. The article below might help you get a jump on how to start dealing with your paper mountains, but you can always seek help for how you can get it under control with simple and easy to follow methods.
Wishing you a clutter-free life!
 
Jennifer Truesdale, CPO
Your Organizing Expert & Professional
Make Time For Paper

You'd think that with the advent of computers and e-mail, we'd be using a lot less paper. But, in reality, paper use is rising exponentially each year, according to a 2002 study at the University of California at Berkeley.

 

What's a person to do? Learning how to effectively handle your papers is key. Paper management isn't difficult. (Really!) The hard part is finding and dedicating time to just do it. Whether your paper piles are at the office (invoices, client information, memos, research) or at home (bills, receipts, magazines, family documents), setting regular and consistent times to sort through papers is key. Once you set up an efficient, effective filing system (ask your professional organizer for assistance!), ten to 30 minutes of daily paper management is all you'll need. Depending upon your personality, decide when to schedule it:

 

* First thing in the morning: It's a nice start to the day and helps you prioritize today's tasks.

 

* At the end of the day: This gives you closure at the end of the day and lets you jump right into action the next day.

 

* Immediately as papers enter your home or office: This is good for those who just want to get it done ASAP.

 

If you set aside this little bit of time each day, you'll never wind up with huge paper mountains to tackle. However, you'll still need to schedule a "mega-manage" once or twice a year. This is the time to peruse your current filing system, tossing old documents and entire files you'll never need. For example, at home, you might want to toss outdated appliance and software manuals, old receipts, and catalogs and magazines more than one year old. At work, you'll want to consider tossing multiple versions of reports (just save the final copy), old research materials, unimportant memos, and projects that never materialized. This purge will provide breathing room in your filing cabinet and make it easier to retrieve and insert new papers.

 

� 2013 Articles on Demand™

Month of February Local Activities
Every month I attach the link for all of the local events that are happening in the LowCountry. Because the Charleston calendar has so many items and things to do and different types of categories to review, I have decided to put the link to the calendar of events  here and then just highlight one or a few events for the month.

February Highlight:
My pick for this month is anything to do with the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition being held in Charleston. Click here at sewe.com for more information. 
In This Issue
Make Time For Paper
Upcoming Events
Simple Organizing Tips
About STR8N UP


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SIMPLE PAPER
ORGANIZING
TIPS


If you are looking at a huge pile of paperwork that you need to make files for, just think "big picture" at first (bank, medical, utilities, etc.). Once you have things setup you can subdivide if necessary.

 If a new magazine arrives in the mail and you haven't finished the last one, purge the old one and move on. If reading the issue is important to you, you will find the time to read it.  Otherwise as I often say, "Just let it go."

 

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