Today, some tips to go along with your actual supplies.

I can’t say “paperless office” enough. The hands down best way to get your mail and bills under control is to sign up for email bills vs. paper. Currently, every single bill I have offers a paperless bill option. Even my rent can be paid online at this point. Paperless billing saves more than mail space, it also saves you money and time. Paying online makes checks almost totally pointless, saves ink, and saves stamps.

If you don’t trust online bill paying, or only have access to a community computer, you can still divert your bills to your email account and then pay by phone.

If you must go the paper route, you can get organized by creating a basket for bill paying. Place your checkbook, stamps, a pen, and so on into a little basket. You could also use a desk drawer. It doesn’t really matter what you use, what matters is that you keep all your bill paying gear together.

For paper bill storage use a system like my current box, or grab some file folders, place them into your file cabinet, and set up a bill system. Good categories include; Bills to pay; bills for later; bill stubs to keep; and important company info (i.e. credit rates.) See more on planning a file system in mistakes people make with their filing system.

Choose two days a month to tackle bills. Some people do ok paying bills as they come, but it works best for me to do them all at once. I tend to do a first of month and 15th of month schedule, because it covers all my bills.

Don’t multi-task bills. Some people suggest paying bills or tackling mail during commercial breaks or when you have a quick second here or there. I don’t agree. You’ll get the job done faster and more efficiently if you sit, stay, and just do it.

Post from: Blisstree

Extra tips for tackling bills and mail

• Why Willy-Nilly Filing Systems Suck – Plan Ahead for the Best Filing System
• What you should include in your filing system outline

Mistakes when making a filing system are common, especially if you’ve never set one up before. Here are some mistakes that will sink the typical filing system (which is why it’s good to plan).

Too few categories – such as putting bills, stocks, and employment info all together because they have money in common. You need to split categories up into more manageable chunks that make sense.

Too many categories – obsure categories will make scanning your files difficult. You don’t need to divide your dental file up into bills / work done / x-rays / and more. Just stick all your dental stuff together. If you split the files per person in the household, it’ll be fine.

Useless categories – having files for funny comics you collect is not necessary, takes up space, and makes the necessary stuff harder to locate. Keep it simple and useful is a good rule of thumb.

Tiny writing on your files – if you label your file folder with tiny text, it’ll frustrate you.

You picked a system that makes no sense to you – Some people can use purely alphabetical categories like; bills, couch warranty, dental, finances, and so on. However, for most people I’ve met, a broken down system works better. I.E make broad categories like “household appliances” then alphabetize the items in that category; blender, DVD player, ice cream maker, TV, and so on. Make sure you pick a system that makes sense to you AND that you label categories in a way you’ll remember.

Are you starting a file system this year?

Post from: Blisstree

Mistakes people make with their filing system

Here are some major categories you need to plan for:

Taxes – and if I were you, I’d plan to separate them by year.

Insurance:

• Home or renters
• Health (per person)
• Dental (per person)
• Auto (per car)

Medical records per person.

Receipts:

• Repairs for home or car.
• Health care costs.
• Purchases.
• Holiday – I always keep holiday receipts for a couple of months, just in case.

Banking – separated by account; also you can include credit card info in this area.

Retirement – 401K or other

Stocks and bonds

Bills – make a category for each bill, and then set bills aside for 12 mos. After a year purge old bills.

Instructions

Warranties

Home info – in this category I’d include rental or mortgage info.

Some people also include fun stuff in their filing system, like recipes, decorating tips, and more. I’m not a fan of this because a filing system is large enough when you only include the necessary items. If you’d like a fun file section, I’d put in in a different place. You could use a different filing cabinet, or if you don’t have too many docs, the same file cabinet, in another drawer.

Next up, mistakes people make when planning their filing system.

Post from: Blisstree

What you should include in your filing system outline

The number one best thing you can do is make an outline BEFORE you set up your filing system. Why?

You likely have tons of various documents, warranties, and other important papers. If you’re going to be able to find them, they need to be filed in a way you’ll understand and use. Before creating a system, you’ll need to decide what sort of system to use and if that system will work for all your papers.

An outline allows you to see what you should keep vs. what is disposable. As you go through that stack of papers, with filing in mind, it doesn’t make much sense to keep useless items. Making an outline of what you have helps you to decide what to keep and what to toss.

Without a plan, it’s very easy to get frustrated and give up. Then, all you have is that stack of papers sitting there, without a home.

Overall, a filing system serves three major purposes:

• A good system allows you to find what you need fast.
• A good system keeps paper clutter off your desk/floor/table.
• A good system allows you to feel secure; i.e. you can always find old taxes, health insurance papers, or that gift receipt.

If you don’t plan, you may end up with a system that does none of the above. Trust me, I’ve been there-done that. Why make mistakes if you don’t have to? That said, In the next post or two, we’ll look at what belongs in your filing system outline, and some common filing outline/system mistakes.

Post from: Blisstree

Why Willy-Nilly Filing Systems Suck – Plan Ahead for the Best Filing System

1. You collect all your documents – you know the ones cluttering your desk.
2. You mail them to Pixily in their pre-paid envelopes – or scan and then fax or email your docs to Pixily (the second option is better IMO) can you imagine loosing all your docs in the mail?! All paper documents are mailed back to you though, and soon Pixily is introducing a  secure recycle service and you’d be able to choose that option as well.
3. Pixily organizes your docs in an easy to search way, then downloads them to your personal Pixily hub.
4. You can go online and look through your docs, organize them, send them to folks or do whatever else you need to do with them.

PS You can upload Acrobat PDF and Microsoft Office 2003 word, excel and PowerPoint documents to Pixily.

Here’s a little diagram – you can see this bigger here.

Pricing and other fine print info:

• You can try a free trial.
• Pricing varies depending on the amount of docs you need saved.
• If you need more space you don’t have to totally upgrade, you can purchase extra doc space, much like you snag more faxes with an online fax service.

Specials:

“Pixily is working with the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) to sponsor National Get Organized Month in January. As a special New Year’s resolution offer, Pixily is offering its customers the opportunity to send an extra 50 sheets of information to be digitized and filed during the month of January.”

There are quite a few of these online organization companies popping up it seems. I think digital paper keeping is pretty smart. You lose the clutter in your office, and always know where stuff is. That said, each of these services has it’s own pros, design, and pricing, so I’d make use of the free trials before deciding which service is right for you.

You can go take a look at Pixily for yourself and try it for free You can also take a look at another digital paper service like Anywhere Vault.

You can also take steps yourself to start cutting paper clutter:

• 12 Ways to Cut Paper Clutter
• Creating A Current Box for Your High-Use Desk Zone
• How to Create a Paperless Life by Tim Ferris
• Organize Your Warranty Information – What You Should Keep

[image via Pixily]

Post from: Blisstree

Create a paperless office with Pixily

If you need a crash course reminder about this useful home inventory service read:

• Anywhere Vault – One Home Inventory Solution
• AnywhereVault – Digital Home Inventory Tips
• AnywhereVault Review

New features and specials at AnywhereVault:

• Quicker and easier home inventory creation, including backing up your important documents.
• Currently the only online home inventory system that creates your inventory for you. “By using just a few photos of each location you’ve uploaded to your vault, our system tags and lists your belongings for you.” End result – you get a handy itemized list of all the key belongings in your home. This is a $149 service BUT if you take advantage of it before December 15th 2008 it’s FREE.
• Scanning services for those piles of receipts and documents that need to be backed up. This is a $99 solution, BUT is also FREE if you sign on before December 15th.
• Report enhancements which make submitting a claim, sharing a list of your belongings with family, or printing off a hard copy for your records easy.
• Unlimited online home inventory storage for only $49/year (just $4/month).

To learn how to get these services free until December 15th, visit the AnywhereVault website.

[image via AnywhereVault]

Post from: Blisstree

AnywhereVault Home Inventory One-Year Anniversary Special

1. Pay all your bills online: And why not move all your banking activity to online while you’re at it.

2. Ban stickies: I know, some are super cute. But good lord those stickies add up. Once you get some, you get stickie mad and use them everywhere.

3. Ban scratch pads: Also come in many adorable varietites, plus they’re small and mobile. They also create massive paper piles. But one tiny spiral notebook and write notes only in that. Recycle it when you use it up, and grab a new one.

4. Get a pda: I LOVE my pda. It keeps me organized, and I can jot down notes on it, which I later transfer to my computer. No paper notepads necessary if you have one of these babies. Don’t let the cost detour you. Add up the cost of years of notebooks, paper, and stickies, and you’ll feel a lot better. This is only a one-time cost.

5. Quit with the simultaneous projects: If you’re office is in paper shambles, it pays to look at how you do thing. Trying to stay on top of eight tasks at once seems sort of productive, but it’s easier to keep paper under control, and stay organized if you start one task, finish, and start another. 

6. Are you in serious paper trouble: Not willing to give up paper just yet? Try the Paper Tiger software system. It’s only goal is to tame paper insanity. 

7. Be bold – go totally paperless: Paperless technology is daunting to some, but imagine if you make it! There’s a Paperless Office Experiment, at Productivity501 going on. Although, it’s been happening for quite some time, it’s the best paperless office challenge I’ve ever seen, and will absolutely get you up to speed.

8. Use it – lose it: Use paper sure but recycle the second you’re done. To encourage this sort of behavior keep a shredder right by your desk. Don’t want a shredder? Keep a recycling bin instead. Paper is handy while you are officially using it. If you finish with something scan it if you can’t decide on keep or toss, then chuck it.

9. Cut coupons: Literally. This isn’t an idea to save you cash. You know how many homes I see with piles of uncut coupons? More than I should. If you aren’t gonna cut them, toss them. They expire soon anyhow.

10. Get a receipt system: Either one, scan them for saving, or two, create an envelope system. Grab one large manila envelope, and a bunch of letter size envelopes. Label the letter sized envelopes (gifts, kitchen, appliances, however), and store all receipts in one place. Three create your own system – the two above are just simple ones I use.

11. Scan pay stubs: They always put pay stubs on that super thick paper, and piles add up so quick. Scanning is the easiest way I’ve found to control pay stub clutter.

12. Put your taxes on disc: I keep my taxes scanned in pdf form and then I also make a back-up disc. Before I did this I had an obnoxious drawer of tax related paper clutter.

Add your own tip!  

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

12 Ways to Cut Paper Clutter

• Organize Your Warranty Information – What You Should Keep
• File Drawer Storage for Warranty Information
• Envelope Storage for Warranty Information

Now I’m going to tell you the WORST idea for organizing warranties. It can work I suppose, but it never worked for me.

The folder system. 

Grab all that warranty info you need to save, and separate each into one thick page protector in a three ring notebook. I used this method for a while actually. It was years ago, and I had all these extra notebooks. However, for me it was a disaster method.

Pros:

• Easy and inexpensive – a folder costs less than a file cabinet.
• It’s highly mobile. I like that.

Cons:

• DO NOT accidentally drop your folder – information spews out the top of your page protectors and you then have a nice big mess to sort.
• You need a million notebooks. I don’t even buy that much stuff – really, and I had three fat notebooks, that could have been five probably. The reason – many instruction manuals are chunky.
• Speaking of instruction manuals, they slip and slide their way out of your plastic page protectors, even when you don’t drop the notebook.
• The notebooks do not store well. They bulk up so much that one side is of course extra fat and good luck fitting them nicely on a shelf.
• You have to buy special dividers. If you want to divide up your folder into sections, i.e. appliances, kitchen, what have you, you’ll have to find special extra wide tabbed dividers. These cost more and can be tough to find. Real dividers (even counting the tabs) are less wide than page protectors. If you’re dead set on this method I suggest buying these tabs instead, and tabbing the top.
• The pages are hard to turn because of the full to the brim page protectors.

I’m a big believer in three ring notebooks. I like them for many things, and think they’re a super duper organizing tool. That said, I count my warranty notebooks among one of my worst organizing ideas ever. It was not user friendly, and I don’t recommend it. I’d try something else first.

Post from: Blisstree

My WORST Idea for Organizing Warranties

Six things to note – no matter if you’re using a video camera, camera, or pad and pencil. Note, if you’re using a paper list and a media list, you only need all of this info on the paper list.

1. Item type: “kitchen microwave”
2. Item name brand: “GE Profile Spacemaker II Microwave Oven”
3. Item description: “White on black, counter top model, etc”
4. Item purchase date
5. Item serial and model number
6. Cost when purchased

This is one reason keeping warranty info organized is such a great plan; it helps with home inventories.

Post from: Blisstree

Six Issues to Cover In Your Home Inventory

But I rent!: You can still make an inventory. I have renter’s insurance, and they asked for a simple list inventory, but I made a better digital camera inventory. You never know with those pesky insurance folks. No offense to any insurance folks, but believe me, I’ve has some challenges with a few, and you do want to be able to prove you have what you have.

Choices:

Notebook & camera: Use a notebook and write down everything of any monetary value. If you have renters or home insurance, they likely gave you a good checklist. If you didn’t get one, go room by room. As you go, take photos of everything you write down. Be sure the photo is clear and shows the whole item. 1/2 of a stereo system won’t fly. Get doubles made of your photos. After you develop the pictures keep one set with your notebook, and one somewhere else, like your best friend’s house or your sister’s home.

Computer & disc: Instead of writing your list, type it up and store it on your computer You should include pictures too. If you don’t know where to start, snag an inventory program like the one at KnowYourStuff.org and get going. Make sure you keep a copy downloaded elsewhere in case your computer dies, or is hurt in a home accident.

Camera & disc: You should still write everything down for your insurance company, but the pictures can stay on your camera (if you have room), or you can download them to a disc. Like the photo system above, keep one copy with your office items, and one elsewhere.

Video camera: Dictate as you walk through your house. Note any items of value. Download one copy to your computer, and send one to a friend. No YouTube

Post from: Blisstree

Create A Home Inventory