Sorry–no pictures of the big cardboard box and 13-gallon trash bag full of work- and home-related documents that needed shredding. The truth is: today’s project was so easy, and went by so quickly, it was over before I even had a chance to snap a photo.

A couple of times a year, the town next door has a major recycling event–electronics, old paint and household toxins, etc. plus a shred collection. I’ve had a bag down the basement in which I’ve been tossing out old bank statements and the like whenever I come across them in other de-cluttering activities; on top of that, we have a box for gathering my wife’s work-related faxes and case notes. All of that went away in about five minutes at a single drop-off, and what a relief it was.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize today was shred day until about an hour before it ended. I probably could have dug a little deeper and pulled out more useless paper to shred, but that will have to wait for another day.

Just like with catalogs, though, there’s a better solution to this problem of “confidential clutter” building up in the house. The work stuff, well that’s unavoidable. But why do I still have paper records coming from credit card companies and banks, when all the information I need is available online? As a follow-up to today, I’m going to see which documents I can simply stop receiving in the mail, then I will have less to shred.

Oh–and today was a bonus day–I also got rid of all of that Styrofoam! OK, not all of it–just what would fill up the back of the van.