Organize + Energize: Your First Organizing Project of 2018

Organize + Energize: Your First Organizing Project of 2018

Is getting organized one of your resolutions this year? Overwhelmed by all of the organizing projects you need to tackle? Don’t know where to begin? Let me help! Let’s start with your filing cabinet!

Do you have a filing cabinet that’s exploding at the seams? Haven’t been able to file papers in a while because the cabinet is so jammed you can’t fit one more piece of paper in it? This is a great time of year to purge your files and get you set up for the rest of the year!  You should be doing this on a yearly basis. Go through and start decluttering your filing cabinet. Take everything out from the past year and beyond and decide whether to keep, toss, shred or archive in a seal tight bin.

You want to be as efficient and productive as possible and if your files are weighing you down, it’s time to lighten the load. If you do this every year, it’s going to be a breeze and only take half the time you think it will. Yes, it’s going to take you a while if you haven’t gone through your files in years, but remember, they didn’t accumulate overnight. Tackle it this year and you’ll be running like a well-oiled machine every year!

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If you haven’t been functioning well with your filing system, now is the time to set up a new working organized system. You’re already working on taking files out of drawers so take it to the next step and re-organize.  Empty out all the file drawers. Think about how you want to function with your files. Think about how you grab certain files and which files you want closest to you.  You’ll want to use your filing cabinet for current papers. Keep old taxes and other archived papers in a seal tight bin out of your daily filing.

If you don’t even have a system for your files and all papers are just shoved in a drawer or all over the home, take this time to take everything out of those drawers, purge, and categorize what you’re keeping and develop a working organized system based around how you function.  Now that you have your filing system up to date and organized, it’s going to be easy to create systems for the paper lying around the home

If you’re on the fence about tackling this project, think about how much time you’ve wasted searching for an important paper and how much stress it caused you. Once you purge and re-organize the files, you’re going to be ahead of the game going into 2018. You’ll feel 10 lbs. lighter, and you haven’t even started your diet yet!

Kristin Carcieri-MacRae, is an organizing & efficiency expert and owner of Organizing in RI. Kristin teaches her clients that living an organized lifestyle will save them time and money, decrease their stress levels and help them become more efficient and productive. Her articles have been published in local and national magazines. She has also given over 70 presentations throughout the state. Watch Kristin LIVE every Thursday at 3pm here on GoLocal LIVE with Molly O’Brien.