more paper organizing ideas

All of us have fun paperwork that we like to keep, but it can easily morph into piles of clutter. Here are a few suggestions for how to organize that paperwork, your time and even your money!

1. Greeting Cards: It’s a good idea to keep greeting cards on hand for upcoming or unexpected occasions. Use an accordion file with labels for each type of card, so you can find all like-themes in the same space and choose exactly the right one for the occasion.
   
   
2. Recipes: Magazines, printouts from the holiday cookie exchange, or old index card -- recipes come at us from all sides and quickly pile up. Use a small shoe box or photo album to organizing all your recipes by categories that conform to your cooking style. If you can’t decided whether to keep a recipe, give yourself a deadline. And if it doesn't make it into the dinner rotation by then, get rid of it!

3. Kids' Artwork: Just like greeting cards, children's artwork should be given a place of honor. However, due to the high production rate of artwork, you will have to set some limits. Let your children keep one or two favorited each month. Those can be displayed until the end of the next month, and can then be stored in a binder. At the end of the year, you will have the top 24 pieces of art for each of your children.

4. Journaling: If you use journals on a daily or weekly basis, do your best to buy them in similar sizes so they can easily be stored together. Then, don't kid yourself. If you discover that you've been absent from your journal for a few weeks, months or even years, don't buy a new one--just skip a page and get back into it.

5. Articles: Are you always clipping articles and ideas from magazines and newspapers? Organize your articles by topic in hanging folders. Within each hanging folder create manila subfolder to divide items into 'read' and 'unread' or any other divisions that you would find useful.

6. Coupons: Snipping coupons from the paper is a great way to save money, but not the easiest thing to keep organized. Designate a small accordion folder with labeled tabs to corral your coupons. Once a month take a few moments to toss any expired ones and remind yourself of others that you have on hand.