At Home with Bounty

Home office cleaning is just as important as cleaning the rest of the house. It isn't a place where family members congregate, so it is easily neglected. Spring is the perfect time to tackle paper clutter in the place where people deal with home finances or after-hours work projects.

What You'll Need:

• A paper shredder
• A wastebasket or large garbage bag
• Boxes, plastic storage bins, or other containers for sorting paperwork
• A permanent marking pen to label the containers or boxes
• File folders
• Labels for file folders
• A basket or bin to hold the sorted file folders

Instructions:

1. Start at one part of the room and work your way from spot to spot. Don't try to work in multiple places simultaneously. This office cleaning project will take more than a couple of hours, so tackling one small pile at a time will allow you to complete one part of the project regardless of how much time you spend doing it.
2. Before doing anything, label your sorting containers. You may want to label things according to what to keep, what to throw away, what to shred, and papers to file in specific places (like medical bills, taxes, et cetera).
3. Go through each piece of paper, deciding quickly whether you want to shred it or file it. Recycle anything that you intend to throw away.
4. Go through the next pile, sorting through catalogs, bills, or anything else, recycling anything that isn't important enough to save.
5. Once you have a large pile of papers to shred, go ahead and shred them. This will empty that container and allow you to continue with the rest of the room. At the end of each sorting session, be sure to empty the recycling.
6. Once you've gone through all the papers, shredded anything that has identifying information, recycled other papers, and filled a pile with things you need to sort through, begin the sorting process.
7. Take the file folders, the labels, and the pen, and create a label for each file, according to what you need. One folder may be for medical bills, another for credit card bills, another for utility bills, and so on. Complete the office cleaning project by putting the file folders in the designated basket or bin, unless you have a file cabinet you use.