Reading Leo Babauta‘s thoughts and suggestions on creating The Habit of Now versus procrastination, clutter and disorder brought to mind the fact that there is an issue of discipline and consistency there.
Should we put dealing with bills, paperwork and that type of boring but necessary stuff in the category of ‘healthy habits’ in the same way that we get healthier by changing what we eat and exercising.
Streamlining the amount of paperwork we have to deal with can help.
In can be done by reducing the number of accounts we have and managing these online (less paper statements, e-mail reminders for due dates).
Paying with one card for some expenses makes tracking them easier.
Doing a once a year ‘clean sweep’ of records that can be discarded is another way to reduce the volume of our ‘archives’.
Check Ramona Creel‘s Records Retention Guidelines for that part.
Setting a time and day of the week to deal with these money and paperwork issues and bundling them together might make it easier on you.
Will you start this week-end?
Do you have a better way to handle it? Let us know!