Motivation
It all started when the file drawer broke as I wrestled to file one more sheet of paper. That’s right, it fell right off one of its broken tracks. I’d known for months that I needed to clean it out, but I dreaded it. It contained financial stuff and outdoor equipment manuals – “Stuff” that I didn’t have any idea what to do with.
Now I had no choice. It was Monday. Dan had a meeting on Thursday – in that room – so…
Dan had taken everything out and laid it in stacks on the floor – wish I’d taken photos, but trust me, it was not a pretty picture.
Plan
I put them all on my kitchen counter where I knew I would have to take care of them quickly.
- First I divided them into topics
- I realized there were things I couldn’t make decisions on
- Made a stack of financial stuff for Dan
- Stack of computer stuff for Eric
- That left quite a smaller stack for me
- I had all the manuals for outdoor equipment and tools in my stack – 2 folders each about six inches thick
- Although I had no idea what we still owned or what equipment had died, I knew Dan did. He didn’t have time to sort through it all, so we agreed that each time he needed to look for something he would take out anything he saw that was no longer needed.
Results
Just like that, I was almost done!
- Dan told me what financial things I could shred, and which ones I could file somewhere less convenient.
- Eric tossed most of the computer things – including the information on the iMac we bought 20 years ago, which I thought was quite a rash decision.
- I filed the stack of papers that were in a different drawer because previously I couldn’t file them in the too full drawer.
- It was amazing when that left a good share of the drawer free.
Why all the paper?
All this got me to thinking. Why do I save so much paper stuff?
- First, because I never know when I’ll need it – or the government will need it
- Second, because I’m sentimental. I loved that iMac and used it for years. For me, the paperwork was a little bit of history
But, Scripture says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” 1 Corinthians 14:40 and I realized it was time for me to spend some time bringing order to our home.
Having what I thought was the worst drawer in the house cleaned out and looking so nice made me want to tackle something else. In the process of cleaning out the big file drawer, I had discovered that our daughter’s passports had expired and I needed to get their information out of some boxes I had put away. While doing that I remembered that I had boxes and boxes of our tax information so I dragged them all out too and decided I would get rid of what I could.
This is the stack I started with. There were ten boxes were full of tax papers and information. I’ll show you the end result in my next post.
Until then…happy shredding!
©Write the Vision
Finding Joy in the Journey,
Phyllis
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Phyllis Sather
Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness at:
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© 2015 Phyllis Sather
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I love this post! It is so inspiring to go through the ever increasing mounds of paper that pile up around here 😉 Thanks for joining the linkup!
Rebecca
http://www.hiphomeschooling.ca
I know what you mean. My husband just found another big box of cancelled checks that needs to be shredded. I’m so glad they no longer send you all your cancelled checks.