If you haven’t yet converted to a Finance Binder, how is your filing cabinet working for you? Do you have a mountain of paperwork that is waiting for you to file? If you have converted, have you turned your Binder into home base for the rest of your paperwork which is stacked on top? Or do you have a beautifully organized Binder from last year, and have never started a new Binder for this year?
Whichever scenario you find yourself in, today is a good day to file. It is Wednesday, which means absolutely nothings except why not make it a good day to file? As the saying goes, “There is no time like the present,” unless you procrastinate and the gift of right now is gone. However, we are only six weeks into the New Year and this a great time to get your year and your finances on the right track.
If you haven’t yet bought a Binder, make a plan today to go and buy a 3″ 3-ring Binder with about 15 dividers, and some pocket dividers. Label the tabs for the dividers with the categories from your budget and whatever other categories you get paperwork for. Then hole-punch your statements (this is when a 3-ring hole-punch is so handy ~ it really makes it go so quickly) and place them in your Binder.
This may be your first time with a Binder instead of a filing cabinet, tub, cardboard box, or maybe just a huge pile. If it is, let me encourage you that this system is going to save you time and energy and make finding and maintaining your paperwork so simple. Every two weeks when you sit down with your finances to reconcile your budget and pay your bills, your will sit with your Finance Binder as well and file your bills away as you pay them. It is also a great place to keep those bills until you pay them. Everything is located in one place and easily available should you need it. I love it because if I am talking to a customer service representative about my cable bill (for example) and she asks me a question, I can pull out my binder and instantly have access to all of my bills for the past year. I make notes of those phone conversations on the bill in question and then everything to do with that issue is stored in the same place.
However, if you already have a Binder and are just snowed under a little, then take today to do a little hole-punching. I pulled out my pile to file today that I have been procrastinating and it took me all of 8 minutes to hole punch and put the paperwork away!!! 8 minutes for all of that burden and dread! This is so often the case with things that we are procrastinating. The procrastination actually magnifies and distorts the thing and steals life and energy from us. If we would just do it in the first place we would save our hearts and heads so much distress.
At the end of a very small investment of time today your paperwork will be organized, your Binder will be a happy place again, and once again you will have made a huge shovel load in the process of digging out. I even finished decorating my Binder today. After all, flowered paper and pictures of my children aren’t the solution to every problem, but they certainly don’t hurt 🙂
So, happy filing, sorting, labeling, and hole-punching today and may God continually give you the grace to do exactly what He has for you today.
God bless,
Tracy