PAPER PROBLEM. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL...

I really want to get this messy scrapbooking room under control.  Hint:  there's more than scrapbooking stuff in this room!  But I really don't want to spend much of my time anymore organizing, sifting, and memorializing the stuff I have. What to do?  I certainly don't want to leave it and goodness knows when I'm gone have my children cursing me for leaving it!  So I'm tackling it.  A little at a time.  It gets too overwhelming otherwise.  My resolution for this year is to only spend money on food and experiences.  So hopefully that will help me not bring anything MORE into the house.  In the meantime, I'm cleaning, purging, decluttering, donating, however you can describe it.    I suppose I could just pitch it all without looking.  But I just can't.

Got this one area cleaned and looking good!

I decided this filing cabinet has got to go.  It is full of files.  90% of them I haven't looked at in years. College work, files from my teaching days, Bible lessons, files from trips we've taken, piano lesson books from three kids, home warranties and appliance instructions from things purchased back in the 20th century!  Crazy.

My advice to all you 20somethings:  Don't let it get out of hand.  Schedule one or two days a year to work on things like this.  Send the Hubs and the kids away and tackle it.  Then you won't find yourself in your 50's with less energy and more junk than ever to have to sift through! I suppose since you have grown up with computers you will probably have less physical papers and files anyway.  But you never know.Also, don't get a big house with extra rooms!  In our busyness, I tended to throw things in a box to "deal with later."  Well, later is here and it stinks.  I really wish I could do more things that matter or just more fun.  But this is necessary.  And January is the perfect month to tackle this mess!