But it, unfortunately, does not address my clutter problem entirely. The downstairs desk, in particular, has several piles of old mail that arrived in the three to four months prior to my "going Martha". Sadly, it won't all fit in the two-inch-wide "to be filed" slot in my new Super Sorter -- even if I push really hard. Maybe someone from Martha's staff will come over and take care of it?
Or maybe someone from Barack Obama's staff? I hear that the Obama moving van is due to arrive at the White House at around noon on Tuesday, and that by 5 p.m., everything from the van will be unpacked and properly placed. Why can't I get help like that?
Anyway, I have checked Martha's book for advice, and have discovered that Martha may have a solution that will not require the input of White House staff.
Indeed, it appears that my filing system is over-complicated. Yes, I do have a filing system -- with four drawers of files labeled for things like phone bills, cable bills, separate files for every credit card, and so on. And as each file contains every document, bill and statement received since our move to this part of the country six years ago, some of the drawers are jammed so tightly that it's a challenge to even get to the files without yanking them out of the drawer. Then, of course, the challenge of getting them back inside the drawer means that I often leave some of the fattest ones on my desk -- right beside the stacks of un-filed papers.
Martha proposes an easier system. She suggests buying a 13-slot expandable file and putting all paid bills for each month together in a slot labeled for that month (with one slot left over for income tax information). That means that rather than having to distribute papers carefully in a variety of different files, I can just put them together in one file slot. And I guess I'll only have to do that once a month, when I clear out the filing slot in my new Super Sorter.
So I have gone to an office supply store, and bought the 13-slot file Martha suggested.
In fact, I even decided to buy two of them -- one for months going forward, and the second for months that have already passed. My plan is to go through the piles of un-filed documents on my desk and also file them by month rather than by category. It should be easy, especially as that is likely how they are already stacked together.
Does that mean that I will eventually end up with stacks and stacks of expandable 13-slot files, each one representing a year of our financial life? Not at all...
Tomorrow: Disposing of documents or... What was I thinking?
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