A lot of our clients struggle with paper. Once we have worked alongside them to sort out their mail and bills, we often find that what’s left is memorabilia. We define memorabilia as items that don’t serve a purpose (anymore) but clients want to keep because it evokes a positive memory. Here’s how we organize memorabilia:
Each family member needs his or her own shoebox-sized box to memorabilia they receive throughout the year. We find this mostly consists of cards and letters from family and friends. For younger kids, it might include Valentines they received from their classmates. Label this box (e.g “Nathan’s Memorabilia”) and store on an easily accessible shelf in their closet. Don’t make it too hard to get to — the whole point is to make it easy to put memorabilia in its proper spot when you come across it at home.
Travel memorabilia (e.g. flyers, postcards, brochures, pamphlets) can get its own shoebox-sized bin, with one bin per trip. It’s fun to get all matching boxes and line them up on a shelf in your living room so you can revisit your vacation whenever you want.
For kids’ schoolwork and artwork, we recommend that each kid get one 10″ x 14″ bubble mailer per schoolyear, and store the items they want to keep from that year in there. This size of mailer forces you to be selective about what gets saved. Having a hard time choosing? We recommend that represents a lot of effort from your child, is entirely original (so no worksheets or coloring sheets) and represents the best of his or her ability at that age. Label each mailer with the child’s name and grade, then line the mailers up on a shelf in your child’s closet.
Printed photos can be stored in their own photobox or document-sized box like these from The Container Store. Have a lot of photos? The easiest way to sort them is by decade, with one decade per box. Label the box (e.g. “1950s photos) and store on a shelf, maybe next to your boxes of Travel Memorabilia.
Need help organizing your memorabilia? We would love to help!
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
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