Clean up your file drawers

Happy new year! My New Year's Day tradition, (besides eating leftovers and catching up on sleep), is to clean out our desk file drawer. I do this, because sometime around late November, it becomes too stuffed to add more to it. So there I was, on the floor, having the kids help me separate papers into piles: one each for the years that I wanted to keep, and one big pile for the stuff that needed to be shredded. 

Most utility bills, bank statements, medical bills, and things of that nature I hold on to three year's worth. That way, in case something did come up, or I needed them for some unknown reason, I've got them on hand. A lot of things are electronic, and I'm working on migrating as many things to an electronic format that I can so I don't have the clutter to clean. I keep all of my IRS documents, I figure by the time I kick the bucket, there probably won't be but 50-60 of them. That sounds like maybe two boxes, I can live with that. 

Here's a good Entrepreneur.com article on business documentation and how long to keep them. http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225511 

Hope everyone's new year goes well!