Home Office

1) Easy to implement

 

Opt out of email subscriptions, use some down time to get off all off all your email subscriptions, you seriously do not need these they are just e-noise that you really don’t need in your life.

 

Do the same with paper mailings, make the effort to get off these lists, it is worth it.  Plus when you start getting into minimalism you will realise that you really do not need to know about the latest colour of lipstick for this season.  If possible receive bills online.  However, a personal word of warning do consider downloading bank statements as they will charge you for copies of them in years to come if suddenly realise you need them. 

 

Switch to e-reader or audio books and donate the rest, I only have three books left in the flat the rest have gone to book heaven.  If you haven't tried audio books yet give them a go, I love them especially since I have needed glasses to read and you can listen whilst walking, running or on the tube.  For the purpose of this article, both audio and Kindle books mean less clutter in your house.  On the same note get rid of all your CD's, download the music and ditch them.  DVD's also need to go if you have access to the same movies via Amazon or Netflix, they are outdated technology and really when was the last time you watched one of them?  Photos are another story and we will talk about them in another section, Mizzi can tell the tale of what she did with all her photo albums.

 

2) The slightly more difficult and boring part ….stick with me it will be worth it in the end!

 

What you need:

• A good scanner (one where you can feed documents in and does 2 sides)

• A good shredder (you will be ditching lots of paper)

• A cloud document storage solution (my preference is Evernote)

• A backup server

This sounds worse than it is as most people will already have all or some of the above.

 

Go through all, I mean ALL,  your old documents either:

a) bin straight away, why on earth have I still got that?

b) scan, and add to your backup server and Evernote*, then shred

c) Keep.  NB the amount to keep will be minimal e.g. Car papers and official documents

 

A note on cloud storage.  I really like Evernote, it costs around £30 per year for the full version but I have found it brilliant, me and my other half can access documents from anywhere via phone or PC (I will share my suggestions on a filing and tagging system in a later article).  Don’t think of Evernote just for document storage I use it to keep recipes, discount vouchers, holiday plans, photos and the like that you would normally have sitting around. We also have a server set up to back up everything that is in the cloud, you don’t have to do this part but it makes me feel better to know everything is backed up locally, the server we have is also backed up to the cloud and also accessible online, although I must say I prefer the ease of use of Evernote for my day to day work (this sounds like overkill but I needed to feel secure about shredding nearly all of my documents).

 

Don’t forget to throw away all the instructions manuals you have been keeping and never look at as these are all available online nowadays, and while you are doing it throw away some of your pen collection, I found this really hard to do but have not missed any of them you can only write with one at a time after all.

 

Me and himself each have a small incoming tray and around once a month go through and scan or discard, if you were very good you could do this as they arrive, but I am not that good; on average it is only 4 or 5 documents per month and takes around 5 minutes.

 

Himself works from home, and is reluctant to follow some of my de-cluttering ideas but this is a

photo of our home office, we live in a very tiny flat so have put the copier/scanner on a pull-out

tray within an IKEA wardrobe, all of the stationery and files for his business easily fit into this

space.

 

If you follow the above believe me it will feel like a weight off your shoulders….give it a go!