PAPERS, PAPERS, PAPERS! Part II (The Notebook)

When my father retired, Mom & Dad put everything into storage and traveled around the United States with their trailer.  Mom gave me a box with a collection of papers from my school years -- one or two examples of my finest art and most brilliant writing from each school year.  My whole family loved going through each and every year of my young life -- and I confess that I loved remembering that part of me.  My sister and brother also got a collection of their school papers. 

I am my family historian and I have six children's worth of papers -- writing, art, certificates, awards, etc.  There was so much more paper when my kids were in school than when my sister, brother and I were students.  I can just imagine how much more there is today.  Of course this caused another of those problem areas of motherhood thorns in the side -- how to organize and store PAPERS!!!  I tried many strategies of filing:  files in cabinets, 3x5 card filing systems, boxes for each child, etc.  I tried them all but, being undisciplined and an expert procrastinator, they all failed (or I failed them all).  All of these systems ended up created mountains of paper waiting to be filed, being moved from place to place.

KNOW THYSELF and TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE!  I was never going to manage my paper going the traditional routes. 

Then Price Club (now Costco) came into being.  There I could purchase really cheap 3-4 inch ringed notebooks and archival safe page protectors.  This happened almost too late for me but you could be saved.  I began a one step filing system based on chronology.  Any paper I deemed worthy of keeping I placed it immediately before putting down into a page protector in a big notebook.  When the notebook became full, I open up a new one.  Because I file everything when it comes into the house into the next available sleeve, I never have to decide where to file it.  I also can usually remember what happened in the last bit of time so when I want to retrieve something it is easier to recover.  Example:  Jennifer's inoculations records --  must be before she could go to school, so that means kindergarten, so that means September when she was five so that must mean ....  You get my drift.  Isn't chronological filing wonderful?

Someday I will pull out each of my children's papers and scrapbook them into cute scrapbooks for their birthdays or Christmas presents.  But maybe I won't get around to it.  At least my kids won't have to delve into boxes of damaged scraps of papers or throw out whole boxes of memorabilia. 

This system is good for more than just scrapbooking.  I have begun doing all of my filing this way.  I have a notebook of birth certificates, car registrations, and other important papers conveniently placed for easy retrieval.  This really helped when we were on evacuation alert during the fires a couple of years ago.  I just popped out the screens of my guest room and threw notebooks out the window and into my car. 

You young moms have the advantage of technology:  digital photograhy and scanners make it possible to file electronically.  All of the billions of trophies my kids won went away technologically -- I snapped them digitally and tossed them.  If I was going to start today, I might go completely paperless.  But I would back up with an internet storage system and portable hard drives. 

My goal for 2011 is to have all my PAPERS organized and I am more than halfway there.  The key to my success this year is that I follow these rules:  (1)  Only touch a paper once if you can;  (2)  Place it in a notebook; (3)  Scan it, file it electronically and toss it.  I finally have a system that works for me.