“Papers? I’ve Gotta Go Through Those MYSELF.”

Sometimes when we are sorting and purging our client’s stuff, we come across some bags of papers and the client will tell us “I’ve gotta go through those myself.” I’ve challenged this argument so many times, I thought I’d blog about it. What follows are the reasons for their argument and why they don’t hold water.

“Only I know what they are” or “Only I know what needs to be done with it.”

While everybody’s different, you might be surprised to learn how common our paper challenges are. For example we understand the subtle difference between a piece of paper you definitely want to act on and a piece of paper you may want to act on. We can also measure the likelihood of definite action by the paper’s shade of yellow or layer of dust.

“A lot of it just needs throwing out.”

While that is certainly true, we know there are also going to be a lot of files that require neither easy access nor disposal. We know that files you are unsure about will slow the process down and we know what to do with them. Hint, it’s not shredding

“I worry about something valuable being thrown out.”

This can’t happen, because everything gets filtered through you. We create a context of like with like, so it is much easier for you to decide quickly. For example, you would review all current medical files together, all newspapers together, all archived insurance papers together, etc. You only need to review paper for 15 minutes at a time, but you are in complete control during the entire session.

“I just need to take a weekend and go through it.”

We typically work with busy, hard working people and when you finally get some much deserved time off, the last thing you are going to feel like doing is sort through some old papers. We’ve got the time, we work fast, and we work safe.

Finally, wouldn’t it be great if those pesky piles of paper never came back again? With easy organizing systems, it’s possible. We provide those. So, hiring a professional organizer to do your paper management is not a wasteful expense, it’s a worthwhile investment.