Organize It Week 2: Reduce Paper Clutter!

You know the green living mantra of "reduce-reuse-recycle," right? With paper we focus heavily on the reduce part. And you will see a huge benefit yourself. Stopping the junk mail from getting past your door will cut down paper clutter by 30 percent. It should take you five to 10 minutes to sort mail and papers every day if you have a proper set-up.

Better yet is to stop the junk mail from even hitting your mailbox! There are services that will manage your junk mail reduction for a small fee, and sites online to guide you through a do-it-yourself plan, such as Stopjunkmail.org.

That's half your battle, but here's how to handle the papers you must deal with.

Gather up these tools that may help:

• Magazine files
• Hanging file folders and hanging file box (or file cabinet)
• "In-box" and "out-box" for mail, children's flyers, etc.—these can be paper trays, mesh wire baskets, or recycled clementine boxes
• Document boxes for photos, children's art work, receipts, or miscellaneous paperwork
• Large wall calendar
• Corkboard