No advice, just the moral support of saying, "I feel ya, buddy." A word of advice for the paperworkophobic: Make sure your parents have their wills done and updated regularly. Chances are, your phobia is genetic and they don't; and that's not something you want to find out the hard way.

It sounds like you need them right now.

If you didn't, I'd advise a strategy of filling a box with unsorted papers, and taking it out of the room so that you aren't faced with the huuuuge pile, just a do-able box-sized pile. You can work at it slowly, take a pile, sort, put the box back and fill it with papers and go away for a while. The box already has papers in it so you know you have to sort but only that many at a time.

The hastier strategy is fairly similar, if needed. Break the pile into a fair number of groups. Then use some deductive logic to determine the most likely group it might be in. If possible use a broad category rough sort (financial, stuff to read, stuff to recycle) not bothering with actually looking at stuff carefully. In the process you just might turn up the stuff you need, or sometimes your brain gives you unconscious clues and suddenly there it is.

good strategies above. I also recommend the following during your current mess management: except for the bare minimum of necessary tax, financial and ID type forms? shred pitch and/or burn the rest. seriously. get it the hell out.

I had unbelievably nasty piles of paper until I instituted the following rule: if the bank and/or IRS didn't send it to me, and I haven't opened and/or otherwise dealt with it after six weeks, it goes bye-bye.

I cancelled all my paper subscriptions (I never had time to read them anyway) and switched to strictly online news and info feeds.

receipts and warranty stuff for sensitive electronics as follows: If I spent more than $200 on something (computer bits, camera equipment, major bike gear, the big stupid HDTV I never watch), the receipt and warranty stuff gets put in a clear plastic bin under the bed and sorted thru once a year when I do taxes. I check to see the update of the manual is on the mfgrs website, then I pitch the packaging and paper manuals too. sound scary? hell I never RTFM anyway, why do I need all that shit lying around taking up space?

anything else is replaceable and of such low importance you'll really never miss it. if its truly important you can always get copies, particularly of stuff like bills and medical info (trust me, they can do a much better job of recordkeeping than you can). switch all your accounts to online to cut down on paper hassles like envelopes and stamps. stop printing stuff off the internet, just bookmark it.

following these fairly simple tactics has pretty much de-paper-cluttered my life. I no longer keep stuff. screw it, the time I waste trying to find and or deal with it is worth more money than what I'd save by sending in that $5 mail-in coupon thats maybe lying at the bottom of a ten inch stack of junk I'm too busy to deal with sorting anyhow.

This site has been an invaluable resource to me in learning how to de-clutter.

Little and often, little and often ...

thanks, folks. good advice. i joined flylady too.

i actually stayed up till 3 or so and now have three garbage bags full of at least 75# of paper to recycle. AT LEAST.

i'm considering becoming nocturnal too. take a nap after work from 5:00p.m.--9 or 10, then get up and do my stuff till early morning while my mojo is in full swing.

the cats will love it. they love napping with me after work.