This is a good time to pull out 2015 documents and organize them (if you haven’t already) to get ready for tax season. It’s also an opportunity to sort through all 2015 documents and previous year’s papers that have filled your file folders, perhaps to the brim, and decide if they are no longer needed.

I will be sorting through my files and archiving the documents that are important but that I don’t need to look at or deal with right now. When I do need to re-visit them, I’ll know where to find them. Schedule a chunk of time for yourself; a few hours or more, to sort through your folders and see if they contain information that you should keep that can not be recycled or shredded. While you are doing this, be sure to pull out any documents that are outdated, and no longer useful that are taking up space in the files.

If you are a procrastinator, are overwhelmed by the task ahead, or just don’t know where to begin, ask a friend to help or keep you company. If the task of reviewing and archiving your files for “February is National Archive Your Files Month” looms too big for you, contact a professional organizer who will help you with this project.

Achieving this task will make room for new and relevant document storage, and will help you locate needed documents more easily.