#kiss | beating the paperwork

in The MINIMALIST2 years ago


Source - feel the weight of that ^^^.

Long ago, I used to have a problem with paperwork. Actually, I still have a problem with paperwork, usually of the world's making, but I have different approach to it.

It's surprising how much paperwork there still is. Bills and notifications still come through the letterbox, and catalogues and flyers and community newspapers. We do have lovely delivery people, though. My favourite is the Yodel driver. He told me the other day that he is always happy when he has a delivery for my row of houses.

Long ago, all that paperwork used to pile up on the kitchen table, usually until it had formed an unsteady pile that threatened to tumble onto the floor at every moment. At that point, feeling hard done by, I would make a massive pot of coffee and sit down to go through them. It was a task that really irritated me.

Then I got a job where I was working away from home for two or three days a week. I'd leave for London on a Tuesday morning and come home late on Wednesday or Thursday after a community meeting in the evening. I started clearing my desk on a Monday, sorting out bills and putting away papers I had been working on, throwing out anything that wasn't needed.

Much to my surprise, this had a profound effect on my well-being. I experienced a new-to-me peace of mind knowing that everything was done and dusted. I loved coming home to an empty desk. Some time later, I read the phrase "cluttered desk, cluttered mind" and that resonated with me: clearing my desk helped to clear my mind. It was a lovely feeling.

I think that's a major thing about having more stuff than you can manage: it fills up your mind as well as your desk and cupboards and house. Paper, even in this digital age, is still coming at you all the time - packaging and magazines and greetings cards. It sucks away at your soul.

One time I was arranging a meeting with a work colleague when she said, "Oh, I can't do that day, we're having a Tidy Friday in the office." Curious, I asked her what she was talking about. She explained that, once a quarter, after they had done their reporting, her organisation would have a Tidy Friday when completed work was archived; and the archives were reviewed and any files that had reached their expiry date were disposed of.

This was a novel idea to me: a day set aside regularly to sort things out - a major desk clearing that extended to the whole organisation. I loved the name, too: Tidy Friday. Who wouldn't be captivated by that?

In a different life, I discovered how much Tidy Friday is needed: I was working with the health service and a hot topic was information governance. This had an added element to retaining records of decisions and reporting, because it applied to sensitive information like patient records.

Among many horror stories that I learned during that time, including patient records being fly-tipped on waste ground, the huge monetary cost of having too much stuff, in this case records and other information, was brought home to me.

One health trust was storing their archives in a warehouse that was costing them a million pounds a year. At the time, I was responsible for co-ordinating community services for people with long-term health conditions who wanted to live a more healthy lifestyle. A million pounds was two and half times the budget we had for this work.

With that extra money, we would have been able to work with another 900 people every year, helping them to have a better quality of life and better health outcomes; we would have saved the NHS nearly three times that amount through reduced need for medication and acute services and, through creating additional jobs, that money would have had a multiplier effect and improved the local economy. Instead, it was going into a resource drain and an environmental eye-sore.

No one knew what information and records were being stored or why. No one was checking it and disposing of expired information. Each year, they crammed more into the warehouse and had reached the stage of having to look for another warehouse to save even more stuff ...

Clutter gone mad.

It's useful to reflect on for a domestic setting: what is the cost, financial and for your peace of mind, of having more than you can manage or stuff that you don't need?

I've taken up Tidy Friday as a regular thing, although it's once a week, rather than once every three months. I put all my running around tasks on that day: clearing my desk (of course), taking returns to the post office, making appointments, checking my bank balance.

Sometimes, there are leftover work things, too - catching up with a colleague and getting clearance for future plans, finishing off reports, archiving. Having Tidy Friday builds in some contingency time, you have a little buffer where you can catch up if things didn't work out as you planned during in the week.

My aim, though, is that everything is done by 2.30pm and then it's the weekend!

A response to Option 1 in The MINIMALIST's blogging challenge - Before and After: Your Minimalist Journey

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Three things newbies should do in their first week and, for most things, forever afterwards!

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I'm a massive fan of tidy Friday. I've spent my career in an IT setting where some documentation can be vital but never gets completed. I implemented tidy Friday within my team for them to clear the decks and catch up on all the documentation and other bits of admin that never got done. It was a revelation and made being audited (several times a year), a much smoother process.

some documentation can be vital but never gets completed

So true - and so stressful when audits come round ... or something goes wrong.

I think there's an idea that we have to work relentlessly, filling every bit of time with meetings and new work, rather than let's take a bit of time just to tidy up and clear our way.

Good to see you - I read your post over the weekend, but I've not commented yet. Glad to hear you are feeling much better (another case of taking a little time) 🙂.

Thank you :)

It's nice to be slowly catching up with old posters/followers and what they've been up to.

Has been a challenging time but a great period of reflection. Not out of the woods quite yet but can now at least sense some form of light at the end of the tunnel as opposed to complete darkness.

👍 ❤️

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Thanks for your #KISS😉



lips sealed
speaking lips

Haha, that's a cute gif 😘

😊 Thanks;)

I love the idea of Tidy Fridays. That's such an effective system.
My mother-in-law has her version of Tidy Fridays, she made Friday her designated day of weekly general cleaning. So she blocked her schedule entirely on Friday mornings dedicated to that and would only accept appointments on any given day and on Friday afternoons. When I asked her about it, why Friday..she said, wouldn't weekends be better and more relaxing in a tidy and clean home? Good point

she said, wouldn't weekends be better and more relaxing in a tidy and clean home?

A wise woman 😍

I love it, too, because it relieves so much stress: you know you have that time to attend to things.

Good to see you!

Yes, she is 😊 I think tidy Fridays should ideally be set in place in any organization. Thinking about it, our house cleaning usually falls on Fridays too.

Hello @shanibeer,
It baffles me too, to see how active the mailing system is here in the UK.
My mother-in-law used to go on cruises all the time before the pandemic; It was my duty to clear her mail to not entice burglars. I was amazed at all the junk that came in so regularly. She did a round-the-world cruise for 90 days, and her office and kitchen were full of mail. With the number of brochures that came about cruise deals, I understood why she got addicted to going.
Gone are the days, when receiving a personal handwritten letter was so much joy. We've moved forward with technology in many ways, but not in terms of advertising.
That "Tidy Friday" concept is amazing.

I hope reflecting on all that junk and paperwork has not put any weight on your mind:)

Have a lovely Bank Holiday!

Direct mail as a marketing tool has seen a resurgence in recent times. It did suffer at the start of mass digitisation of communications, but now that people have become acclimatised to that, direct marketing stands out and seems to fulfill some other needs that people have as well (maybe a break from mundane life? I don't know and I can't remember that bit of the research) 😂.

Yes, I like Tidy Friday - the mental health benefits are enormous. Writing the post was quite motivational, I've been doing a bit of tidy-fridaying! 😍

I have some sorting and tidying up to do too. I am just giving myself time since I've only been living on the boat for a year. However, I'm taking note of a lot that I don't use and haven't touched for a year, which includes books :)

Happy Tidy Friday
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Hehe - What does the one at 6pm look like? 😍

Can it still be explained by human logic when, after removing the paper waste, I constantly ask myself whether I have not been too consistent after all?

Das klingt nach Poesie – vielleicht einer unserer modernistischen, existenziellen Dichter aus den 1920er Jahren, T S Eliot, vielleicht? 😍

Sorry for the horrible translation 😂

This time it wasn't the really bright minds. Occasionally, even mine produces something.


Dieses Mal waren es nicht die wirklich klugen Köpfe. Sporadisch gibt meiner auch was her.

Hi @shanibeer,
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