Ditch the shredder

Buying a shredder will not solve your paper clutter problem.

As you get a handle on your paper stash and have a box (or several!) of documents ready to be destroyed, the next step is to shred them. So the next step is to NOT BUY A SHREDDER. I’ll give you three reasons why:

It’s a time suck, not a time saver

In-home shredders are not the way to go if you want to maximize efficiency. Too often, you can only shred up to 10-15 sheets at a time and if you’ve been purging years’ worth of old personal documents, that’s going to take a while. And as you’re shredding, the machine is going to run hot and need breaks to cool down.

You’re still stuck with paper shreds.

OK, let’s say you’ve toughed it out and shredded all your papers with private info on them. Good. Now you still need to deal with the shreds. More steps! Where do the shreds go? The trash? The recycle bin? What if pickup day is windy - there go your shreds - all caught up in the neighbor’s bushes. Now the neighbors are annoyed

You’re bringing even more clutter into the home - the very thing you’re trying to eliminate.

The standard personal shredder is about 10” deep, 15” wide and 20” H. Where are you going to put that? Did I mention they weigh about 20ish pounds? Who needs that taking up valuable closet space? Not you!

So what’s the solution?

Hiring a professional shredding service is the easy answer whether you have one batch of docs to destroy or you need shredding done on an ongoing basis. If you’ve got a box of papers ready for shredding, check out your local office supply/copy/shipping stores. Many offer shredding services on a per pound basis. Simply take your box to the store and they’ll handle the rest. If you’ve got a large volume of document destruction that needs to be done, reach out to a company that offers onsite shredding. Their mobile shredding truck will come to your home and shred the paper right in front of you and then takes the shreds to the recycler. Be sure to do your research before hiring the service. In addition to positive customer reviews, another detail detail to look for is NAID AAA-certified which means they must meet the highest level of legal and compliance regulations required for secure information destruction. If you’re lucky, some communities offer free shred events - simply search your city plus “shred event” and see what pops up!

Let the shredding be the easy part of your paper purge and leave it to the professionals.