Organizing Study Notes

Now, I love paper as much as the next crafter, but not when it's in piles of clutter laying around the house. That's where I've had to draw the line.

Piles of scrapbook paper are a completely different topic - something for another day.

The paper I'm talking about are bills and receipts and magazine clippings and ... you get the idea.

In an effort to tackle these paper monsters, I started a monthly filing system. I put all of the papers we receive for the month in one hanging file in the filing cabinet instead of separating them by company or organization. This works better for me personally because it's a little less daunting than taking the time to file each individual piece of paper in a different folder.

As I was working on this organizational system, I came across stack after stack of sermon and Bible study notes from church. We are given worksheets for each Wednesday night, adult Sunday school and morning sermon, so the stack grows quickly, especially when there are two of us in the house keeping notes.

Initially I was keeping all of them in a binder, but after a few months, that binder was full and I realized that wasn't going to work for very long.

Then I decided to type each set of notes into my iPad so I would have them handy. This took the better part of an hour each week, and I really didn't have a way to keep track of which one was which day or topic. I go back over them frequently, so finding specific pages is essential.

It came to me one day ... yes, it took a little while - that's how my brain works ... just take pictures of them with the camera of my iPad. I can take the photo the day I bring them home and they'll be identified on the photo by that day, making it incredibly easy to search for them. Plus, I'm saving time and energy by not inputting them by hand.

In addition, Danny and I can both get to them through our Dropbox, which is an amazing feature.

How do you organize your paperwork?

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