KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

GreenBitterfly wrote: »

I am looking to Kondo some of my personal paperwork, and I'm wondering what people do with their wage slips? I've got some from around ten years ago, when I was paid weekly, so I've got a number of them. I was wondering if there's any point in me keeping them?

Schools of thought vary about payslips. Some schools of thought say just retain the annual P.60. I did know an senior administrator for a large law firm who thought employees should retain them as evidence you did work somewhere. With workplaces flickering in and out of existance, and even long-lived organisations having a high turnover of staff, it can be useful to prove where you were working.

With things of this nature, I stack them neatly in envelopes, fold them over and tape them up, labelled clearly somethng like Payslips from XXX Ltd (date to date) Archived. Then I put them in the tin document box which serves as my coffee table. Thus, I can get at them in seconds if I need them, but they are tidy and aren't in the way of everyday life.

Of course, others do differently.

Guys, I know some of you *love* hearing about daring deeds of kondo at the parental home, where I will be until mid-evening, and I though I would have to disappoint you by saying that nothing could be done this trip. Then - ta dah! - Mum let me into her workshop shed. Well, am having a teabreak right now, but will be back shortly.

This is an 8 x 12 ft wooden workshop shed, wired and lighted and containing a workbench, a lathe, a bandsaw and a pillar drill. It's also full of tools, sawdust, womblings, coffee cans, chunks of timber, margarine tubs and more Might-Be-Usefuls than you can shake a stick at.

Thus far, I have creamed off some of the most obvious carp, such a a plastic tube of flexbile wood filler which had solidified and marg tubs which have distorted under the weight of other tins and bottles. There's plenty in there, imo, which can go, but can't IYSWIM.

Howsomever, I intend that by tea-time tonight, there will be enough floor to stand on with both feet at once. And that I am going to stick masking-tape strips on some coffee cans to save keep opening them to see what's inside.

The first labels will read; Castor cups (mixed sized), castors (salvaged), tape (misc), Misc bolts, misc screws and more than likely Misc Misc.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Imagine a normal shed or garage but heavily cluttered. Then imagine throwing the contents of lots of containers around and stirring sawdust and cobwebs in with a collection of plastic containers and tins from the past 40 years. If you're flinching, rest assured that you haven't got the tenth of the picture of the horribleness.:p

But there is light, and a knackered old ghetto blaster which I'm about to re-tune from Radio4 to something a bit more rawk&roll. Given the workshop contents, heavy metal would be entirely appropriate.

There are also spiders and I am wearing sandals. I'm trying not to think about the critters in there.

Years ago, the pension laws changed in the Netherlands to include parttime workers, and it was retro-active, as long as people could prove it. This was done to include more women in the pension scheme. My mum was over the moon, as she had done a lot of parttime nightshift work at a women's refuge centre. Unluckily, dad had cleared the admin the year before and had thrown away all the payslips, diary where mum wrote the hours she had worked, etc. Mum was not happy and dad still has to hear about it. He never was allowed to do the admin, and still isn't, so we're not sure why he ever did.

I was thinking of scanning them, and then shredding them. They are from when I was a Room attendant, I hated every second of that job for the nearly two years I worked there. The wage slips don't 'give me joy' and take a bit of space currently sitting in a shoebox.

On the payslip debate I keep the P60/P45 and the last payslip that went with it as it shows NI paid over. I worked a lot as a "temp" and one agency went to the wall and I could not claim any jobsekers as Government they said I had not paid in any NI for year 200x. I could prove otherwise and got the job seekers allowance. Justin still got a grip on our garage, counted 13 plugs cut off items when being allowed to help tidy yesterday.

Payslips: I'd tend to keep them, or a representative selection with P45's because one does hear of companies not paying National Insurance, despite deducting it from their workers. And sod's law declares it's the worker that has to sort it out with the powers that be, not the employer. (Rolls eyes.)

And keeping scanned copies sounds like a fine idea, I can imagine the joy of consigning the originals to a fire...