My Paper-Journey Life

Has anyone figured out how to manage their household paper?! It's like the towel that keeps getting wetter the more it dries - I can never seem to keep up on my paper clutter!

It was easier when I worked in a professional office that gave me access to more efficient scanning and copying tools - but for home, it's a single page scan or smartphone photo-type scan...and then what? Burn pile? - shredder? (Do I even remember where that shredder was stored when we moved in six months ago?!)

I am consistently holding on to one organizational concept as I take action in my home: my dream of being a minimalist... which, to be honest, I have already given up on! But that's only because I discovered a new, more refined, term for my dream: Be a SEMI-minimalist.

Holding tight to this ideal as I invest the emotional labor required to choose a paper organizational system for my home, family, and life, I am reminded of an initiative I actually started a few years ago for my paper organization: Google Drive.

Yes, I still have to scan paper in before I shred it; but as with anything, if I take some time to input clean, consistent files, then the return on my time-and-effort investment will be well worth it.

Since I already have a system in place, and keeping in tune with another lifestyle motto: Don't reinvent the wheel, my first task is to take inventory of the existing digital filing system.

---

Honestly, it's not as bad as I thought on the inside. I have a couple files that need to be cleaned up and moved into designated folders, and then I will take a moment to reassess the folder categories - primarily to ensure my family's needs haven't evolved.

My son was born in 2018, we have moved three(?) times since I last actively used this system, my stepdaughter is a senior and there may be a benefit to me passing documents on for her to manage in the next year, so going through her files with a fine-toothed-comb and only keeping what she may need (school, medical, financial, etc.) to start her own file system will be important. #adulting

Also taking into consideration how technology has changed, I may have apps on my phone that I am currently using to organize systems instead of my old cloud-based paper system, so I will want to ensure I move important information from one designated area to another and organize everything in one space rather than having multiple places to look when an important document is needed.

I probably search for my family members' social security numbers, my son's birth certificate, and our proof of auto insurance more than anything - so I will probably create a formal filing spot within Google Drive for these items, with duplicates in a Quick Access area. (Looks like Google Drive provides a Recently Accessed Items area anyway, which is great! But in the off chance that I access a non-typical file and it reorganizes that auto-file, moving my more frequently used auto-file to the bottom of the Recently Accessed list and out of sight, I will still want to have a quick, self-managed folder for these routine documents.

Initiating some of these steps, I have found that I have assigned other family members permission to access certain folders. This would be a good opportunity for me to do a quick audit and ensure the access person and corresponding email addresses are current.

BONUS TIP: Have you ever been advised to check your beneficiaries annually? It's a good habit to create. The fact is: birth, death, divorce, remarriage and any other number of family relationship dynamics can affect who we want our assets being passed onto in the event of our unexpected death. Taking a quick look, on some kind-of periodical routine, just ensures assets go to the person(s) intend, in any given situation.

Archive, Archive, Archive

I am quite possibly the WORST when it comes to archiving verses removing files (aka: TRASH). There have certainly been random situations throughout our marriage where we were trying to remember who our health insurance carrier was in 2003, but while it has come up, the real question is whether or not it come up again? And - let's face it - when it came up before, did we ever find the information? - did I even consider to look in THESE files to see if we had the information saved? Probably not.

Another thought on this all important topic of archiving is that I recently helped my mom go through my grandmother's paperwork after she passed away. She saved every card any friend ever sent her, and while I appreciate her heart towards her friends' efforts, neither my mom or I know how "Sally" is and so there is no benefit to us saving that card now that my grandma is gone. It's such an emotionally hard thing to wrap my sentimental brain around, because here was this tangible item that was precious enough for my grandma to save for countless numbers of years, and yet, because it means nothing to me or my mom, it goes into the trash.

I think about my stepdaughter, who may be a paramount participant in going through my memorabilia when I die, someday. She does not seem to have a sentimental bone in her body - which is physically against every cell in my body! So hard on me to see her toss items that I value in her life. Seriously, over the years this part of her personality has broken my heart, at different times; and yet I have always been equally very cognizant not to pass my idiosyncrasies (aka: baggage) onto her. It's that whole: Your perception of me is a reflection of you, concept. Her not being sentimental is really my issue, and so I try to own it rather than burden her with those issues. But applying these thoughts here, because it can be challenging for me to part with sentimental items, I know that if I were to die tomorrow, my stepdaughter wouldn't have any connection to these items and so much of what I consider a part of me would go into the trash.

So, what JOY does it bring ME today? If there's joy, then I will keep it - even if that joy comes out of a crawlspace box every 10 years. But, I'm also going to try and find my joy in the things that really matter, that way, some day, when I pass away, my stepdaughter won't be inclined to just pass on something in a fleeting moment but rather pause because she knows that IF I kept it, THEN it mattered --- same goes for items that I am choosing to save to the cloud.

Use Technology to Your Benefit

Can what you are saving - both paper or digital - be found with a simple Google Search? I always feel inclined to save O&M's for household appliances, both large and small. But if I really needed information, I have Model and Serial Numbers available to me on the devices themselves that can be input online and used to find information with more easy [Ctrl+F] than any paper or scanned booklet can offer.

Remember to Look Behind the Scenes

And now here is the ugly truth I don't want anyone to know... I actually have set up email addresses for every-different-area of my life:

• Primary Personal

• Junk Personal

• Family Joint Email Account

• Kid's Correspondent Account

• Baby Correspondent Account

• Business Account

There are some GREAT tools available for having a single email account and organizing categories and subcategories to best organize every family member, every topic, etc. While email is a completely separate organizational topic for another blog post, I bring it up here because with each of these separate Gmail accounts has also comes individual Google Drive Accounts and I am going to have to spend some time looking into how to best merge all the Google Drive files across my Gmail accounts to best manage all items in one central location.

---

Alright, y'all - that's all I've got tonight! To ensure I follow through with my goal of posting in this blog every day for 30-days, I am going to hit "Publish" despite my lack of flare in this specific post. In and of itself, this visually blah(er) post resonates with me more than the perfectly published post because I am a firm believer that life is a journey, and there's always room for improvement... My life is real, and so sometimes, even as it comes to work production, real life supersedes my desire for perfection. We'll call it my "no make-up" post as it's more in the raw.

Good night!