I don’t know about your house, but I know that in my house it’s really easy for piles of paper to accumulate. Whether it’s mail that needs to be sorted, piles of my boys’ art work, receipts that need to be filed for tax purposes, or articles I want to read, they all seem to pile up.

I’m working to put a stop to that. For the last few weeks I’ve tried really hard to implement a Touch it Once Paper System. That is, whenever a piece of paper comes into my hand, I don’t set it down until it’s in its final place.

For example, instead of bringing in the mail and setting it on the table to sort through it later, I bring in the mail and deal with it immediately. I sort out the junk mail and place it in the recycle bin. I shred anything that needs shredding. I place the items for my husband where we keep his mail. And, finally, I put the bills that need to be paid or statements that need to be reconciled in a particular place on my desk to be dealt with the next time I’m taking care of desk items.

I’ve been doing the same thing with my boys’ art work. If they give it to me, I hang it up, I place it in their portfolio file, I put it in a particular large envelope where we keep items we’re planning to mail to a friend or relative, or I recycle it (Yes, a lot of their art work ends up in the recycle bin.  I wrote more about my specific process of Decluttering Kids’ Art HERE.).

Whatever the particular piece of paper is, I try to see it through until it gets to its final (or semi-final, as is the case for bills to be paid or items to be mailed) place.

While this may take me a little bit more time initially, it doesn’t take much more. And I find that in the long run it saves me time as I’m not, for instance, looking through the same stack of mail multiple times. Instead of moving papers from place to place, I aim to only touch them once.

Importantly, a Touch it Once Paper System definitely cuts down on clutter and paper piles. The pile of bills to pay on my desk or the envelope of art work stay in confined places, and I have a plan for them. Everything else is filed, recycled, or otherwise taken care of. No longer do we have a random pile of art on the kitchen counter.

So far, I’m finding that the Touch it Once Paper System is making things go more smoothly in our house. As a bonus, we no longer have to clear the mail off of the dining room table before we set the table for dinner.

How do you deal with paper that comes in to your house? Do you tend to end up with piles? Do you file and take care of things right away?