The Old School Habit That's Cluttering Up Your Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home. Unfortunately, this can also make it the most cluttered room in the home, as a variety of items tend to accumulate there. One of the biggest sources of clutter in many kitchens is paper. The old school habit of having a desk in the kitchen and using it as a home office has cluttered up many kitchens with paperwork.

Paper clutter comes from a wide variety of sources. Mail, receipts, magazines, advertisements, documents, kids homework and school paperwork, and birthday cards can pile up quickly. As the paper piles up on kitchen counters, often in several piles, the chore of going through it all and finding a way to organize paper can feel like an insurmountable challenge.

Clutter can have negative effects, such as making you feel overwhelmed, anxious, and lacking energy. When important papers and bills get lost in a sea of paper clutter, it can rob you of time and money. You can waste a lot of time looking for a receipt or important document, and there can be financial consequences, such as missing payments or important dates. Fortunately, allowing paper clutter to pile up is a habit that you can break.

The first step to dealing with paper clutter is to gather the paperwork into one spot, so you can go through the pile. Choose one spot to put all the papers in, so you can sort through them. This can be done for the initial declutter and then daily to prevent junk from piling up on the counters again. Adding this simple task to your daily routine will help keep your home decluttered.

While most people never look at most of their paper clutter, there are likely important documents in the pile. Start by sorting the paper into piles that include items you will probably need in the future, things you may need, and items you know you will never need again. The last pile belongs in the garbage can, but documents that have important identifying information should be shredded first. One of the best ways to organize all the papers around your house is to set up a filing system.

The modern solution to declutter your home that you probably hadn't thought of is using digital solutions. This can be done in a number of ways, such as scanning important documents and saving them to our computer, using your phone to take photos of some documents, and accessing bank statements or paying bills using paperless methods. Once you have everything organized, take a few moments each day to deal with paper as it enters the house to keep it from piling up again.