7 Day Decluttering Challenge: Day 4 – Paper

Inside: Today’s decluttering challenge is paper, and I’ve pledged to get rid of 100 items. Will I be able to pull it off? Read on to find out!

It’s Wednesday, and we’re more than halfway through the 7 Day Decluttering Challenge–yay! Today I’m putting myself out there–100 items. Paper abounds in most homes, except maybe some of these twenty- and thirty-somethings who have actually gone paperless. Have you heard of that? Crazy. Can’t even imagine that! Nor would I want to. I like to have a hard copy of many, though not all, things. Relying solely on a digital source doesn’t work for me, so I’ll leave that to the millennials.

Meanwhile, there is paper to be removed. What might fit into this category?

• old magazines
• old newspapers
• junk mail
• scrap paper
• used notebooks
• paid bills (whatever you don’t need to keep for your records)
• packaging
• fliers and ads
• candy and food wrappers
• miscellaneous paper (of course!)

When you write and edit for a living, you tend to have old manuscripts and stacks of writers’ magazines lying around. Today’s trash bag was heavy with paper, but did I make the quota? Yes! I got rid of 101 items, which included old writers’ magazines, scrap paper, old receipts, old stubs, cards, fliers, old manuscripts, old notebooks, and binders with paper. Admittedly it was hard to get rid of some of the magazines, so if I found an article I wanted to read, I simply ripped it out to read later. I still got rid of a lot of stuff. But . . .

Go paperless? No. Go with less paper, definitely!

From here it’s easy peasy. Tomorrow we turn to the living room. Will I find 25 things? Stop by and see.

Do you have any paper pile-ups in your house? Tell us about it in the comments.

Related posts: Join Us for the 7 Day Decluttering Challenge

7 Day Decluttering Challenge: Day 1 – Kitchen

7 Day Decluttering Challenge: Day 2 – The Spare Bedroom

7 Day Decluttering Challenge: Day 3 – Junk Drawers

7 Day Decluttering Challenge: Day 5 – The Living Room