Do I Need to Keep This?

Good question!  I hear it all the time when working on filing systems for my clients.  The first step in setting up a system is to sort through the paper you already have, but how do you know what to keep or toss?    

I found a great resource back when I first started in the business of organizing - www.onlineorganizing.com.  A particular item I reference often is their Records Retention Guidelines which tells you how long to keep your paperwork/records.   With tax time coming up, now is a great time to get your paperwork in order!   

The Unknowns

It never fails that while sorting, you'll find things that don't seem to belong anywhere or to anything.  These are always the hardest items to deal with, where should they go?    One way of dealing with them, as I found today in my client's garage, is to put all of the 'unknowns' together in a bag, aptly labeled:

IS THIS ANYTHING?  Pieces + bits of things unknown