At least three times a day, someone comments on my organizational skills. While I think there are tons more people who are WAY more organized than I am, I thought I’d share something I use that helps me out big time!

Folders.

Yep, that’s it. I’m sorry if you were looking for something ground breaking or earth shattering or anything like that – it’s pretty simple. Folders. Four of them, to be exact.

As you can see, they’re labeled:

Chart & Pay

File

Coupons & Gift Cards

Current Projects

Well, you can’t really see the last one, can you? Here you go:

These four folders go with me everywhere I go. They’re not hard to bring along – they normally even fit in my purse! (Here’s an idea of how thick they are all together, next to a pen…)

No problem at all.

So why four folders?

Chart & Pay – In this folder are all the bills that are coming due. When I get home from work every day, one of the first things I do is go through our mail (so it doesn’t start backing up into a pile!) I pull the bills, open them, check the amounts, and then place them into the Chart & Pay folder. When I get to work, before I clock in or while I’m on my lunch break, I chart the bills on my calendar and set reminders for myself, so I know when to pay what. (I do this at work since I keep address labels and stamps at work, too. The reason I don’t like to do much of this stuff at home is because we have one of those big community mail boxes…and the “out” box is a little sketchy. I always wonder if anything actually gets taken out from there or not, ha! So if I mail things from work, I can actually see the mail person come in and pick up the mail and take it away. Peace of mind!) Once the payment of the bill has been taken care of, I put the stub or remaining paperwork into the File folder.

– In this folder are all the bills that are coming due. When I get home from work every day, one of the first things I do is go through our mail (so it doesn’t start backing up into a pile!) I pull the bills, open them, check the amounts, and then place them into the Chart & Pay folder. When I get to work, before I clock in or while I’m on my lunch break, I chart the bills on my calendar and set reminders for myself, so I know when to pay what. (I do this at work since I keep address labels and stamps at work, too. The reason I don’t like to do much of this stuff at home is because we have one of those big community mail boxes…and the “out” box is a little sketchy. I always wonder if anything actually gets taken out from there or not, ha! So if I mail things from work, I can actually see the mail person come in and pick up the mail and take it away. Peace of mind!) Once the payment of the bill has been taken care of, I put the stub or remaining paperwork into the File folder. File – This is basically for anything that I’m working on while I’m away from home that has a place at home. For instance, as I mentioned the bills above. When the action on them has been completed, I drop them into this File folder and then, once a week, I take the File folder and place everything in it’s place in the files in our home office.

– This is basically for anything that I’m working on while I’m away from home that has a place at home. For instance, as I mentioned the bills above. When the action on them has been completed, I drop them into this File folder and then, once a week, I take the File folder and place everything in it’s place in the files in our home office. Coupons & Gift Cards – While I’m not an extreme couponer, by any means, I do keep coupons for certain items, and somehow I’m always being given gift cards and certificates, etc. I keep them all here, so when I’m out, they’re with me, instead of me trying to remember where I put them!

– While I’m not an extreme couponer, by any means, I do keep coupons for certain items, and somehow I’m always being given gift cards and certificates, etc. I keep them all here, so when I’m out, they’re with me, instead of me trying to remember where I put them! Current Projects – This is the biggest folder (as you can see!) And what is a current project, you ask? Well, right now I have everything from business cards that I’m designing for a client to medical paperwork I need to fill out to ideas for decorating our back porch! It’s a folder for everything I happen to be in the process of…and I tend to call everything a “project”.

So there you go! That’s my #1 trick to staying organized! Do you think it would help you? What’s YOUR #1 trick to staying organized?