Organizational Idea: Filing Clips

I was at the National Building Museum gift shop and saw some fun binder clips with things like "File" and "To Do" printed on them, like these. I liked the concept, but didn't really need a bunch of binder clips like that. Heck, I had so many binder clips at home that I didn't use. But, seeing these put a lightbulb above my head. It seemed like a good solution for my constant paper problem.

I tended to have piles of papers around often...and it drove me nuts. I'd put my bills in a paper sorter, and they would fall all over the place. I'd have a pile of things to file (I'm perpetually putting that off) as well as action items that needed me to do something with them. I decided to make my own giant binder clips, with labels printed on my labelmaker: "To Do," "To File," and "To Pay." Here's what the individual clip looks like (wee bit fuzzy...):

I use these to contain my papers, and pin them with silver pushpins on the inside of my coat closet door. Of course, this would work just as well on a wall or bulletin board...but for me, the closet door works well.

The best part is that it gives me a self-contained limit to how long I can allow the filing to pile up.