Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Filing and organizing, ugh.

Many people are neat, prompt, and orderly about reading and filing their documents:  financial; tax; insurance; and medical documents, at least I presume that is the case.  I am not and have spent much of the last two days paying a tedious price for my lack of discipline in this area.  Not finished yet either but progress has been made.  That may still be an illusion.  Another stack of mail just popped through the door.

There is always a good excuse to put off keeping up with this task, and then eventually it becomes the equivalent of an unsorted document hoarder.  Is that now something that has some disease name now.  That needs to be avoided.  Part of the problem is the management of not just some big consoldated accounts which would be relatively simple, but one of many smaller financial accounts that have resulted from inheritances, assisting with a few other people's accounts(gratis), old small gifts that were meant as important to my wife as a child but are now nuisances, and obliging requests from friends to make some modest investment in a few start ups.  My patience runs thin and my lower back gets sore as the documents are too many to fit on a single desk, so on floor the go to into somewhat random piles.

Computers in concept have simplified this task, but whether reading one's roughly 20 page car insurance, house insurance, medical insurance, long term care insurance, annuity aggreements, or other documents on paper or on a screen, the same time is required.  Often the best policy here is to ignore most of it and hope for the best, but some financial documents must be read to avoid making some stupid and costly mistake, not beyond me unless I stay alert.

We pay our bills on time almost always unless misplaced, but it is clear to me that management of a multi-adult household must have not been this demanding at some point in the past.  Is it the proliferation of regulation that has led to this.  If there is such a thing as a mid-year resolution, mine is to deal immediately with as many documents as possible, into the trash if  possible and dealt with with pronto if not.

A more interesting post is expected to be written tomorrow but this was needed to clear my mind.  I assume that I am not alone.



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