Before I get into today's subject, let me just ask: so as far as the lay out goes, what do you readers think? Too many links? Too few links? Not enough features? Too many features? I've been actively using the internet since 1993, but when it comes to making websites, sometimes my mind is still stuck in 1994. I'm used to just whipping open Notepad, and typing pretty straight-forward HTML code. So in a strange way, handling every new widget that comes along is somewhat new to me. Oh well, you know what my email address is. If not, uh...look to your left.
And now, on to the subject of paper. More specifically, SAVED paper.
THE PAPER
The title of this blog entry was taken from a chapter of Don Aslett's Clutters Last Stand. I've seen some people give this book bad reviews, whining that it didn't present too much for ways of organizing stuff. I have seen those sorts of books that do that, showing a lady proudly standing by a 10-foot tall stack of cardboard file drawers marked with a Sharpie. However, Aslett points out that this really isn't getting rid of clutter; it's just a way of creatively hiding it from view. To quote the book:
And another quote:
Locked or hidden away, collections can be a mental drain to their owner, because they generate no love and appreciation, yet the owner has to store, insure, clean, and protect them.
(On a side note, this is why I have my autograph collection framed and on display along my living room wall. I'm sure I'll get into more detail about "collections" on another blog.)
To say I have a tendency to save papers would be a gross understatement. Here is an example of what I saved:
- School papers. I have saved every single piece of paper from high school, college, and graduate school. No lie. Every note taken from every class, ever quiz, every homework assignment, every exam, you name it. Pretty much the only things I didn't keep were the final exams at the end of the year, because quite simply they never physically gave them back to students. If I stacked it all up, I know it would be much taller than me, if not twice my height.
- Pay stubs. Every pay stub to every job I ever held.
- Utility and other bills. Every mailed bill or receipt from every phone bill, electric bill, heating bill, car payment, health insurance, 401k, and who knows what else.
- Bank and credit card statements -- and receipts. In all fairness, I am very organized with this! I don't think I have every checking account statement since I got my first checking account at age 18, but certainly every one from the last 12 years. I save every debit or credit card slip so that I can balance my checkbook and verify my credit card statement. Then I fold the statement around these slips, staple it shut on either end, mark the date span on the outside, and toss it into the pile. But that's still a lot of paper.
I have plenty of other things too: movie ticket stubs, concert ticket stubs, losing raffle tickets, and then some. But the ones I've listed above are the significantly big collections.
WHY DO I KEEP IT?
I certainly know why I've been reluctant to ever throw this stuff away. For the school papers, that's easy:
- The school papers represent a major part of my life. I worked hard through a private prep high school, then went on to get Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mathematics. With all of the countless time and mental energy spent on this stuff, it's hard to just toss it like junk mail.
- School was expensive! Wouldn't it feel like throwing out something myself and my parents paid many tens of thousands of dollars on?
- "Hey I might want to read up on this some day!" Though as I've said before, if I haven't gotten around to doing something in 15 years, chances are I'm NOT going to get around to it in another 15 years either. Is there REALLY any value in the notes I took in my sophomore year of high school for Julius Caesar?
For all the rest of the stuff? That's easy too:
- "I might need this information for something!" The fear of course is that I'm going to have to solve some financial mystery involving something major I bought in May 2003, and neither myself nor the bank will have a record of that. Or some collector will claim I didn't pay my bill when in fact I did, but I don't have the confirmation number anywhere.
- The popular scare stories out there about identity theft certainly makes me a little more reluctant to toss something with my social security number into the trash.
And there's also an excuse that applies to all of the above: "I have such a complete collection here, and such a perfect record of keeping 'everything'! I'd hate to break that record. I can't claim that anymore if I get rid of something."
HOW CAN I DEAL WITH IT?
Here are some things I've thought about.
- Scanning. At first, this seems like a good solution. Just scan everything and save the images to my computer, thereby reducing all 10 miles of it down to a couple of DVD-Rs. Unfortunately, I don't think this is practical. I have a LOT of papers. From experience, I know how long it takes to just properly scan ONE document whose size and resolution I'm happy with. Even if I paid some broke college student to sit there and do it, it could take years. So as awesome as having digital images of everything would be, I don't think this is going to happen.
- Shredding. I bought myself a small paper shredder. And guess what? It's still in the box. Since you can usually only shred a few pages at a time with these things, I should probably find some service who can do it for me in bulk. Though I have to wonder if, ironically, criminals work or go to these places to gather stuff for identity theft. Maybe that sounds silly and paranoid on my part, but it's still a pause for thought.
- Burning. This might prove to be a quicker way to deal with it. And a good excuse for a party.
- Photographing. A simple idea I picked up from Aslett, and I wonder why I didn't think of it before. I might be happy with just taking pictures of myself standing next to my huge stacks of school papers, then getting rid of the stuff while keeping the photographs. This gives me the "proof" I want to keep for myself while getting rid of the volume.
- Something ritualistic. See blow.
I have always been a very ritualistic person. I've always had a love of symbolism and ceremony. People into metaphysics would argue that these things I've amassed have a special "energy" to them. Whether it's metaphysical or (as I more suspect) purely psychological, I'd have to say they're correct. What would be REALLY fun, I think, is giving this huge mass of things to a really keen artist who can create a real statement with it. Or, again, having a bonfire party but filming it too, complete with introductions and speeches and what not. Could make a great YouTube clip. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm open to hearing ideas.