I have a system for preventing the accumulation of paper clutter. When I check the mail daily, I process it immediately, standing in the kitchen, before I even take my shoes off. I open up all bills and detach the statement from the other pages, remove the envelope in which I will be including my check, and throw out all the extraneous parts of the package before I even take any relevant notices to the desk in my bedroom. There, any bills that must be paid by the next pay cycle are grouped together into a paper clip stand, the sole purpose of which is to "clip" all my bills together.

Other things like bank statements, pay stubs, or coupons go into my top desk drawer (I'll admit I need a more sophisticated system for dealing with these items in a more timely fashion, but I'm working on it). Magazines go into a neat stack of others I need to read in the living room beside the couch. I work through a few a day, and throw them away as soon as I've read every article I'm interested in reading.

I immediately hang up my coat, and if I'm changing clothes before starting to cook then what I'm wearing gets hung up or goes into the hamper. I also like to wash dishes soon after I'm done eating, because it weighs on me, emotionally, to know I have things accumulating in the sink.

A little goes a long way when it comes to these peace of mind measures.