Day 19: Declutter and Organize Important Documents

How to Declutter and Organize Your Important Documents

We only have one more week to go. How are you feeling so far? Having so many spaces in your home clear of clutter and organized feels fantastic. Today, we are going to be decluttering and organizing important documents.

This is a very important part of your organizing process. Having all your documents organized and ready to go in an emergency will give you tremendous peace of mind.

“Important documents” is a broad category, and you should include anything specific to your family situation here. Still, it will certainly include documents like birth certificates, social security cards, marriage licenses, divorce decrees, living will copies, and power of attorney documents.

To simplify your life, with the Decluttering & Organizing Documents Checklist -in the Vault!- you’ll also find a checklist for categories and the documents included in each.

Let’s get started.

How To Declutter And Organize Important Documents

The first part will be accessing or acquiring a fire-proof filing box for your essential items. This doesn’t have to be huge; it should just be big enough to hold your important documents and any valuable or sentimental items you could not imagine losing.
Supplies you may want to have handy when organizing your important documents:
- Have a scanner, filing folders, labels, and pen ready. The app Genius Scan does a great job from your phone if you don’t have a scanner.
Next, organize your documents in categories. Here are some: Legal, Money, Taxes, Insurance, Medical, Home, Auto, and Business.
Here is what each of them could look like:
- Permanent documents:
  - Birth certificate
  - Social security card
  - Passport
  - Marriage certificate
  - Prenuptial Agreement
  - Divorce Decree
  - Citizenship / Naturalization papers / Green Card
  - Military Discharge
  - College Transcripts
  - Adoption Information
  - Will and living will
  - Power of attorney
- Money/Taxes/Property:
  - Deeds
  - Bills of sale
  - Insurances
  - Inventory of collections, art, electronics, valuables
  - The plot of survey of properties you own
  - Property taxes
  - Rental or lease agreements
  - Vehicle titles
- Medical: A copy of your insurance cards, policies, and list of providers.
- Credit cards – make a copy or scan all your cards (front and back) and save them in a pen drive.
- Bills: Make a copy of every service provider you have. To reduce the volume, you can scan and save them on a pen drive.
- Your contacts – download all your contacts and save them in a pen drive.
- Have a pet? Create a folder with all their documents, insurance, vaccination, etc.
Scan your important documents and save them on the cloud and a pen drive.
Create the files for the categories you need.
Place your essential documents in their respective files.
Label each file accordingly.
Make a list of each file’s contents, print it, and store it inside your box. Keep a copy of this list in your backup pen drive.
Now that everything is organized let’s decide where to keep them safe. If you live in a flood zone or tornado-prone area, consider this when hiding your safe. The best place to store it is in a safe spot but is also easily accessible if you have to leave the house quickly in an emergency.
You will be surprised how much more at ease you feel once your valuables and important documents are stored neatly in a secure area.

Organizing Planners

Decluttering & Cleaning Planner

Kick overwhelm to the curb with all checklists and forms to organize your home from top to bottom and the cleaning printables to plan a cleaning routine unique to your family’s needs and schedules.

I want it!