So. Much. Paper. Clutter!

Julia Williamson
Clutter Chronicles
Published in
3 min readJan 21, 2022

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I’m drowning!

Image licensed through Canva Pro

Picture this: I’m hunched over my laptop in that trying time between dinner and bed when it seems as though you should be able to get something done but you are far too tired and brain-dead to accomplish anything.

I’m trying to book plane tickets. Which is already weirdly stressful? But I’m complicating the situation by attempting to use a voucher.

That travel voucher was the result of having experienced an aircraft change at the last minute. Apparently the replacement plane did not include row 32. Our row.

This was a trip that had already taken us to the corners of the country. What should have been a simple non-stop cross-country trip was re-routed from Boston to Atlanta to Phoenix to Portland.

I think we can safely blame climate change.

Have you ever traveled with a child who is on an elimination diet to identify pesky allergies and then your one day trip turns into a two and a half day trip and you’re struggling to feed her rice and vegetables at airports all over the country? No? I don’t recommend it.

But I’m booking this new trip. I want to use the voucher, naturally, since money as it turns out does NOT grow on trees, nor does it helpfully appear in the bottoms of sock drawers or the top shelves of clothing-stuffed closets.

That sucker is NOWHERE to be found. I searched all the places I keep important papers.

And that right there is the problem. Because I have multiple places to stash super-important valuable-as-cash documents!

This is not a good system.

This, in fact, is not a system at all, but rather a lazy and purely aspirational way to manage paper. An actual system would make life a lot easier.

I never did find that voucher and was forced not only to pay full price for our next journey, but also rue the hour I spent at the unlovely Phoenix airport acquiring the damned thing in the first place.

I’m happy to report that I’ve created a system, one that’s as easy as brushing your teeth. And I haven’t lost a document since.

Right about now you may be remembering your own catastrophic loss of documentation and wondering how you can attain the nirvana of paper organization.

You’re in luck!

I’m more than happy to share my simple strategy with you.

So happy, in fact, that I’ve created a mini-course that will give you all the tools you need to keep your paper wrangled and corralled. Maybe even lassoed.

Because I want you to experience the joy of knowing where every document is at all times. And I want to encourage you to let go of all the extraneous papers that have sneakily convinced you that they are vital to your well-being.

They are not.

You can banish paper clutter forever! I can help.

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Want less clutter in your life? Get my free download 100 Things to Throw Away Today!

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Julia Williamson
Clutter Chronicles

Feminist, optimist, nonconforming pleaser and rebel. I know. I mostly write about getting rid of things you hate, both physical and intangible.