January takes off like a rocket and in a flash it will be April and taxes will be due. It’s a drag to think about paper right now; most of us would much rather be outdoors on these rare sunny winter days! By taking office and paper organization in chunks of just 20 minutes you could easily have everything dialed in for the tax person well before April 15 and get all of your other papers organized along the way. Here’s a sample first week:
Day One: Get out your phone and make sure you have the number of your CPA and any other professionals you might need to get your tax information together. If you don’t have this stuff, spend 10 of these first 20 minutes getting it together.
Call, text or e-mail your CPA and ask what exactly they will need from you: mortgage interest statements, proof of health insurance form, 1099s, et cetera. Make a list so that you can check things off as they are located or arrive in the mail.
Make a folder to collect 2025 tax documents.
Day Two: Starting in the entry way, go through the house room by room and collect all of the random bits of paper you can find. Some of you will need a big box, some might just find a handful of items. Get every post-it, piece of mail, receipt, business card and anything else that is paper, print and not evergreen (like a book).
Take everything to a clean surface like the dining room table with a recycle bag at the ready and start sorting. Anything that is not going to the recycle or shred bag should go into a stack. These categories can be “file,” “taxes,” “need to mail,” “pay,” etc. You can leave these piles out for today (it’s probably already been 20 minutes) or you can go ahead and file what needs to be filed if you can do it quickly.
Day Three: If you couldn’t file something quickly yesterday, you might need to spend your 20 minutes today ordering file folders and a labeler. If you already have supplies, make the files you are missing. If your files are such a mess that you can’t add another thing to your overstuffed drawers, spend 20 minutes purging through files. Repeat as many days as necessary until your files are streamlined.
Day Four: Do all of the little action items associated with any papers you have gathered. Spend 20 minutes today making calls or sending e-mails you need to make to lose the loops on each piece of paper. If you have a question about a bill or service, call. If you need to return something, get online or call and get the process started. If you need something repaired or if one of those sticky notes is a reminder to schedule a hair ut, call and get it on the calendar. The toss or file the papers that no longer need any of your attention.
Day Five: Make sure all of the pens in the house work. Go through the house and gather every pen and test it. If a pen works but you hate how it feels in your hand, the ink color or the scrawny way it makes your writing look, toss it. It is amazing how good spending 20 minutes doing something like this can make you feel.
Many years ago—I think it’s been 30 years! I started using only Uniball roller black pens. Oh the smoothness! Don’t travel with them though—they practically explode on planes. I ruined a beautiful coat that way in the late 1990s.
If you don’t have a huge house or a ton of random pens, spend the time inputting business card information into your phone or cleaning up your phone contact list. Get rid of any names you don’t recognize or any services or establishments that are no longer relevant. For example, I don’t need the New York City restaurant information I gathered in the 1990s. Most are closed for good and any others I can easily find online.
Day Six: If you don’t own a shredder and have a “to shred” pile, take it in to your bank or broker which should be willing to shred it for you. Otherwise, Staples charges about a dollar a pound to shred and it is worth it if you have a lot to shred, even if you own a shredder. In the future, if you own a shredder, shred items as soon as you identify them as something to shred.
Day Seven: though not exactly your day of rest, use this day’s 20 minutes to go through any greeting cards and photographs that have accumulated. Review them and either toss, file, or put into a box or album. Don’t let memorabilia pile up and become a burdensome task when it is something that should be pleasant and bring a smile to your face. Unlike taxes.
You can also spend time going through any accumulated magazines. Get ruthless and recycle anything from last year or just tear out essential “to read” articles or inspirational photos.
Paper organization is one of the most requested services I provide because it is so overwhelming for people. Each slender slip requires a decision and that’s a lot of brain power. By chunking into just 20 minutes a day, you can make an enormous amount of progress. Spend the gloomy, cold days doing paper organization and by April you will be able to enjoy creative pursuits and time out side with no twinges of tax-time guilt.