A reader from Australia said her biggest problem in her office is knowing what to keep and what to get rid of. As I organize for women I find this is a big problem in the majority of homes. It is important to keep documents needed for taxes. Here in the U.S. we have been told that we need to keep our tax related documents for 7 years. For further information on records keeping and the real requirements visit www.irs.gov.

I recommend paying as many bills on line as possible. Banks and Credit Unions can pay most all bills electronically; you just have to set up the information for them to be able to do the transfer. Notify the utility and credit companies you want electronic bills, to discontinue sending paper bills.

When you get a paper bill put them in a hanging file labeled Bills To Pay. Decide on one or two days a month to pay bills, pull out the file and pay them. Because they are contained you don’t have to wonder where you put the bill. If you absolutely must, only keep one past months paid bill at any given time. After paying a bill you can shred or recycle the paper.

I recommend this as a way to keep a home office organized as it does away with tons of paper. If you can verify two different ways that you paid the bill there is no reason for you to keep the paper.

•One way to verify is with the new monthly bill it will show you paid the previous month.

•You will have record of how you paid it—credit card, debit card, check, or electronically.

If you absolutely can’t let go of the paid bill instead of keeping clutter around I recommend a wonderful scanning device called Neat Receipts. It scans receipts, business cards and documents of any size. It reads and converts scan to editable text then it identifies and digitally files your papers for easy access and you can quickly access them when you need them. Check out www.neatreceipts.com