You’re Just One Folder Away from Feeling Better
How organizing your finances makes room for peace
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What PAID members can look forward to:
This week: The three simple steps to organize their finances and real life examples of how to implement it.
Next week: A detailed example of a chart of accounts that can be put to use immediately.
And an extra bonus: Access to all of the newsletter archives so no matter when you join, your small business will will have a system to get your finances decluttered and organized.
—Angela, Katie, and Gen
On to our story.
Angela—
“I just don’t understand why you can’t help me.”
I have decided that decluttering my home and finances is no longer an option. I need more organization and less stuff in my life.
So, every morning for the past couple of weeks, I've asked my husband to help me declutter just one thing.
Something simple. A small step toward getting rid of all the things that creep into our home. I’m thinking to myself, “How about all those things along the living room wall that you brought in from your truck? Would it be so hard to start finding a home for that stuff?”
And every day, he nods. Then nothing happens.
At first, I thought I needed to try harder. Tell him I needed his help. I even asked him to help me find someone to help.
He didn’t.
So I got frustrated. I caught myself standing in our bedroom, surrounded by half-finished donation piles, wondering why I seemed to be the only one doing anything about it. I began to believe that the mess would never improve unless we worked together.
But then I realized something important.
I can’t make anyone want to declutter. Not with logic or guilt.
So, instead, I decided to stop focusing on what he wasn’t doing. I started focusing on what I could do.
I am just starting my decluttering journey. I know it will take time. When my parents passed away in 2020, it took Katie and me an entire year to clean out their home one room at a time. I'm doing it again, but this time in my own home, and with the added project of decluttering my finances.
So here is my plan. I’m going to clear my own spaces and deal with my own clutter, financial and otherwise. I am going to find small ways to make life less chaotic. No announcements, no speeches, no ultimatums. Just quiet progress.
Yesterday, I cleared off a nightstand in my room. One of the things on it was an old Rubik’s Cube. I didn’t know what to do with it. Why was it hard to donate? I have never been able to solve one, and I know I don’t want to try. Just donate it, right?
I took it to my son’s room (at least it was out of mine), dusted off the nightstand and lamp, and all of a sudden, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I woke up this morning admiring my new, clean space.
This is what I want to feel in my entire house and with my bookkeeping. Peace.
I hope that by modeling this behavior, something will change, even if it's gradual. Maybe my husband will join in the fun. Maybe he won’t.
I’m learning it won’t happen because I pushed. It will happen because I backed off.
Sometimes, the best way to inspire change in someone else is to make a change within yourself quietly. To show what’s possible instead of demanding it.
If you live with someone who isn’t quite on board with decluttering, especially when it comes to finances, you are not alone. It can be tempting to think everything needs to happen at the same time, in the same way, by everyone involved.
But it doesn’t. Start with what you can reach. Start with what belongs to you. The shift begins there.
====
Enter Gen:
Last week, Gen coached me to start sorting through my receipts into keep, toss, and not sure.
For me, that translates into filing.
I buy and charge everything online. When the bill arrives (I still receive everything on paper, old-school), it goes into a dated stack to be paid, eventually I pay it, and it is placed in a stack to be filed.
From now on, I will eliminate the to-be-filed stack and file as I go. At least, that’s the plan.
However, I still have the old stack to file. I am attacking that for 15 minutes each day until it’s gone.
Baby steps.
"Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing."
— Albert Schweitzer
—Gen
Last week, I decided to walk my talk.
It was time to sort through 3 months of receipts that were piling up on my desk. I seriously procrastinate over this task all the time. I’d much rather be out grooming my horse’s tangled tail than sorting piles of papers. However, I left the tangled tail and pushed through my pain, and you know what…I felt so great afterwards, and my desk is soooo tidy that it makes me itch to keep it that way.
How about you? Were you able to take 30 minutes last week to sort through your pile? High Five if you did! You’ve already done the hardest part: Starting.
Even if you only got halfway through, or your “Not Sure” pile is bigger than the “Keep” one, you’re still further ahead than you were. This week, we move on to the next step in the SOAR Method:
O is for Organize
Now that you've cleared out the junk and pulled together what matters, it's time to give everything a “home.”
Think of this like setting up your tack room. When everything has a place, bridles here brushes there, you spend less time searching and more time doing what matters. Your paperwork should work the same way.
Here’s how to ORGANIZE in 3 simple steps: