LF,

This is an expansion on the KISS/Easy Does It philosphy.

At the Red Cross we sorted all bills by date due, because there was often a $$ incentive to pay by a certain date. Since medical goes into your credit reports, it's a good idea to keep dates foremost. (And sometimes a loan to pay a biggie off at once is actually cheaper than the vendor's revolving finance charge, if you have to let an item sit unpaid for a long time.)

Office supply folks have sorter-thingies (accordian files) tabbed by dates or A-Z; I have an old one I have re-tabbed many times for different uses at different times. (Now I use removable tabs I get at the office supply place.)

When I was a file clerk for Shell Oil customer billing-- back when paper was actually used and KEPT, for every credit card use at a gas station, oy!-- we similarly depended on accordian sorters to make fast sense of a large pile of paper.

After the first sort-- which really, truly only takes a few minutes-- you would sub-sort the items that you have put in each pocket. ("Pay now," "Pay Soon," "File," "Toss" because already paid-- or whatever categories you choose for your first, meta-sort.)


I use a highlighter when I open the financial mail to make it easy to spot the account info or due date I will need to spot, later, because every damn invoice has their info in a different place.


Anyway-- to keep a large and unpleasant job manageable, what you do is sort first in a meta-category sort, and then break it down, pile by pile whenever you can stand to do it, into smaller sub-categories.

So you should only need to spread it all out LATER after you deal with it-- for now you just would sort it off its current pile into some sort of sorting thingie. Ninety percent of it you will throw away all too soon-- burn it to prevent ID theft!-- so making file folders NOW is a waste of time and paper.


I have helped friends (and they have helped me) when one of us has had this kind of pile to deal with-- just a second person QUIETLY sitting by in case baby, door, or dog need fast attention.... or a second pair of hands to bring piles or scribble notes... a QUIET person who is not in need of attention that day-- and can just barter it-- is best. The kind who can sit comfortably in the midst of a mess and not try to make it look neat at the expense of YOUR needs.

~Susan