Productive Cat Is Productive

[serinde]

D&D got called on accout of Steve anticipating not leaving work til after 7, so I bit the bullet and started on the Paperwork Shoggoth.

This was not as easy as it sounds. When I got home and was hungry and looked at usual post-trip bleh house mess, I went five rounds with the crazy; but took a big glass of Man Up, You Big Whiner and reminded myself that I have absolutely nothing to feel woeful about compared to 80% of the universe (at least), and snarled myself into a more productive state. Unloaded & reloaded the dishwasher, put chicken-and-rice in the oven (you'll know that one, shechameleon), put away the load of towels from the dryer, disposed of the cardboard forest that was growing up around the beer/soda receptacle, and cleaned the catbox. Then, on to the shoggoth.

A bit of background: I am (and this upcoming statement is for some reason cause for surprise & disbelief among a portion of my acquaintance), perhaps, somewhat disorganized. (Pause for howls of laughter from sweh.) Part of it is nature, part is nurture, and part is the fact that I really am trying to juggle about three too many balls at any given time. I have tried various techniques to cope with this, and have clawed my way to at least a bare stability where I don't drop too many things on my foot, but I always have a vague background feeling of Imminent Doom related to this. Upon twin glowing recommendations from sedai and spride, I checked out this "Getting Things Done" book & associated method. Mirabile dictu, it seems to actually be working for me. I have not yet achieved full implementation, no, not by a long chalk; but even the initial passes have worked wonders on my brain, my mental state, and my productivity. Mostly I've only done it at work so far, but I'm shifting it to use at home, and the big thing standing in my way initially is the Paperwork Shoggoth. (Which is composed of over a year's worth of bills, statements, and miscellaneous whatever that I've dealt with but haven't stored, so it's all in a giant pile on top of my desk--thus rendering it useless for any purpose at all.) So tonight, I opened and sorted every single piece of un-dealt-with mail, and this weekend I shall file until my fingers bleed and every single item is in its destined location. And then I shall deal with every item as soon as it comes into the house. I shall take it downstairs, I shall pay it (or whatever needs doin'), and I shall immediately rotate a quarter-turn and file it. (Which sweh has been trying to get me to do for years. I'm sorry, lovey, I'm a slow learner.)

This was not without cost. There is a long slice on my arm now from a particularly vicious catalog that did not want to go gently into the goodnight of the waste bin. But it went.

Comments

[must-sew-faster.livejournal.com]

Stop.
Before you file it, decide if you really need to keep it at all.
I realized last summer that I could shred 90% of what I had filed...and it hasn't come back to bite me once.
I had an ton of paper files. I still had files of the health insurance forms from when I had kids.
Once the insurance company has paid the claim, I shred the stuff. It's all on line anyway.
Once the next bill comes, I shred the old one. It's also all on line anyway.
Most heart wrenching of all is destroyed the 8 year old tax papers. :) What the IRS didn't catch then can't hurt me now (is joke, IRS people).
Thank God the bank doesn't send canceled checks or paper statements any more, cuz the shredder really really didn't like chewing up checks.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I did a purge when we moved, getting rid of several years' worth of junque. Steve gets antsy at the thought of not keeping a year or so of back material, so I gots to do that, just for the sake of his peace of mind.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

I disagree.

Now, obviously all current paperwork should be filed. The bill you just paid? File it, with a record of the billpay number. The credit card statement? File it. The car loan pay off? File it. If it's a bill or a statement, file it.

Don't depend on online access. What if you change insurers (change job, company changes plans, whatever)... lost access to online information. File it! You're going to be with the same bank all your life? Maintain your own "check book"; Quicken or Money or whatever. Track it yourself. Who cares about canceled checks (we never got those in England, unless you paid for them); you just need to know what check number was used to pay what bill and for what amount.

Now, there's a limit of how much you _should_ file. Maybe I go over the top; I file everything. In England I had 17 years of bank statements, 14 years of credit card statements, 10 years of phone bills... all organised.

Except... that wasn't over the top. I moved to America in 2001 and I kept all my phone bills, gas bills, lease agreements etc. When I wanted to buy a house in 2005 the mortgage company wanted proof of a number of lines of credit (utility bills counted) going back 3 years. Because I did have all those historical statements I could prove I'd had those accounts open for all that time. I got a mortgage because I had filed everything.

Now, eventually, you have paperwork that is stale and out of date. Once a year review what you have. Maybe some current files can be archived (eg phone bills over a year old can be put into filing storage box, freeing up space in the filing cabinet). Once the archive space gets crowded, maybe consider shredding totally unnecessary paperwork. This is value judgement. Thus far I have 6 years of paperwork and it all fits into less than one box. No need to shred yet. All that paperwork I had before I moved to America? It still didn't take up much space! Just one box.

One thing I do shred on a regular basis; credit card receipts. I keep them on file so when the statement comes in I can check the amounts are correct, and then shred the now unnecessary receipts. In this I'm probably a little too controlling; I've already cross-referenced the credit card statement with my own computerised account tracking system!

Mostly my shredder gets more use out of shredding stuff that's garbage but might potentially be usable for identity theft.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Right. My fuzzy brane forgot to comment on our first mortgage and the many years' worth of crap they wanted from us. (Though for our second mortgage, they just wanted the previous end-of-year pay stubs.)

We do have a lot more categories of cruft than you do (car stuff, cat stuff, 2x health stuff {particularly Steve, ahem}, 2x benefits and 401k stuff, blah blah blah). But probably not enough to fill filing cabinet as full as it is.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

Oh, I filled my two draw filing cabinet in 4 years in Brooklyn. It's why I started down the archive path; when the cabinet gets full then archive it to a filing box.

You don't need immediate access to historical files, but you do need to be able to retrieve them if necessary. All of my Brooklyn accounts aren't in the cabinet; no need! But I could get to any ConEd bill from that period, if necessary.

[must-sew-faster.livejournal.com]

Honestly, in 14 years, I've only ever had to produce a bill stub twice: once to register my son for school, and once to get a library card.

I have actually had to produce a canceled check once. Those fine folks at Discovery cashed it and didn't credit my account.

I did shred a ton of school stuff last summer (special needs kids generate a ream of paperwork every year) that wasn't current. You really need only keep the current year's IEP - if you move to a new school district, they want the current IEP and that's it.

With my bills now being paid entirely on line, I hope to dispense with bill stubs entirely. I may have to look into actually using Quicken or something at some point.

I do recommend never ever destroying any 'workman's comp' stuff, as I know people who've had claims paid, and then denied YEARS later. Like 7 years later. Scary.

I have a friend who moves internationally as you do. He scans all his 'must save' paperwork and keeps them on a jump drive and uploads them somewhere to back them up as well. Then again, he prides himself on being able to take everything he needs to a new place in just one suitcase.

It's hard being the child of compulsive hoarders. Periodically you look around and just freak out by the ton of stuff accumulating. Or you look at your sibling's home and go "Oh shit, that could be me!!!"

[sweh.livejournal.com]

I shall deal with every item as soon as it comes into the house

This is the same lesson that you've already learned for the kitchen. There, if you tidy as you go then the work space is already clean for the next act of creation. There's no backlog of "must clean before I can do stuff".

Here, if you pay as you go then there's never a backlog of "must pay" or "must file" to deal with. It's the same sort of thing.

Doesn't have to be daily; weekly suffices. Set aside some time that's for bill pay and filing. But it _is_ a task that needs to be done.

Other benefits will include not having mega-piles of letters and papers strewn across various surfaces waiting to be dealt with :-)

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

This is the same lesson that you've already learned for the kitchen.

Which my grandma had been trying to tell me for *decades*...

I said I was a slow learner!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I so need to learn this too :-(

[spride.livejournal.com]

Applause

Hooray for Productive Cat!

[sedai.livejournal.com]

Congrats! I'm actually doing the exact same thing (again). I recently bought a real filing cabinet instead of a little filing box and have put almost all of the crap on my desk into files so I can actually find stuff again.

The "put everything into In and then deal with it, LIFO, one-by-one" that you're going to do this weekend might be hard (it always reminds me of all the stuff I should have done but didn't, bleh), but it's SO worth it. If you get stuck, let me know and I can come and hand you things and make sure you're making progress.

Also, regarding whether to trash or not, I think David Allen says "when in doubt, throw it out" and "when it doubt, keep it" are equally valid. My inclination is to keep stuff, so I do. When the drawers get full, I guess I'll have to go back and purge.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Wow! Well done! THat sounds like a job-and-a-half.

[nancaurelia.livejournal.com]

If it is any comfort, you do not appear to be disorganized. If you were truly disorganized, the concept of this book would not appeal to you; it would horrify you. And you are impressively productive on numerous levels.

[(Anonymous)]

Yay! Good for you. I'm a fan of GTD too.

Another book I have found helpful is _Apartment Therapy_, they have a blog too. The book helps with purging all the "stuff" you don't need in your house or apt. and arranging the things you do want to keep in the most pleasing and useful way.

Parts of these books intersect. For example in Apt. Therapy they talk about creating a "landing strip" right by the door which consists of hooks or a table or something where you put your coat, shoes, keys, bag, cell phone, mail etc. They have you sort mail immediately into 3 categories: personal, bills, and other (catalogs you *want* to read, magazines, etc.), everything else gets thrown out immediately. Then when it is time to pay the bills you just grab the "bills" basket and have at it (filing when finished of course).

Good luck with this weekend!

Kathryn

[briony530.livejournal.com]

Why didn't I think to cash in on my obsessive organization by writing a book? Stoopid.

[lillilah]

Back when I itemized, I kept the required three or five years worth of receipts. Now, I only keep the essential things, like letters from the Department of Labor, insurance policies, and character sheets. I don't need to shred that much, as much of it can be composted instead of recycled. Letting the worms eat my phone bill is pretty satisfying. I guess also having a house that is so small that we don't have room for anymore paperwork helps too.

[lillilah]

Part of it is nature, part is nurture, and part is the fact that I really am trying to juggle about three too many balls at any given time.

I'd guess that actually it is probably more about the last item rather than the first two. I get lots done. I feel organized. However, I'm not more organized than you are. I just have way way way less going on.