You’ll need to create a plan for staying on top of trash once you’ve cleaned up your home office. Here are some helpful tips:
Newspapers - Create a space just for the newspaper such as a wicker basket, the bottom shelf of a coffee table, or an area of a bookshelf. If the paper is not being read, that is where it should be. Then, assign a member of the family to put the previous day’s paper in the recycle bin or trash can each morning on their way out the door.
Mail - Read and open mail daily, at the same time every day. In
your home office, create a place to open the mail that is right next to a trash can, file cabinet, inbox, and shredder. Put mail for other family members in their rooms, or in a specified and agreed upon area. Throw junk mail away immediately, file coupons, insurance papers, and bank statements, put bills in an inbox created specifically for correspondence that must be dealt with immediately.
Catalogs and Magazines - Create a space just for these such as a magazine organizer, the bottom shelf of a coffee table, or an area of a bookshelf. Put new magazines and catalogs on top of old ones. Go through the stack when it’s getting large, starting at the bottom and throwing away anything older than three months.
Electronics - Assign a space for the new addition immediately. Remove what is being replaced, if anything. Decide immediately what to do with the old item: throw away, give away, or sell. If there isn’t room, get rid of something else so there is. After deciding what to do with the replaced item, do it.
Broken Items - When things break, throw them away (or get them repaired) immediately. This includes printers, electronics, glasses, and computer equipment. Do not replace an item without throwing out the broken one.
Understand that trash is a major problem in any home. But the trash introduced in Step II or our program isn’t the trash that
makes it to your trash cans. It’s the trash that remains in drawers, on desktops, and in closets, and never finds its way out the door once it’s made its way in. Getting rid of the trash in your home office is thus the first step to taking control of it.