Big to Small
Of course, it would be nice to know exactly where every single piece of paper should go, right off the bat, but it is totally unrealistic. Sorting every individual page all at once will leave you in a mess worse than what you started with and feeling bogged down and totally overwhelmed. Instead, we're going to start big and work toward the smaller, detailed organization. What the heck does that mean? In the same way it can seem daunting to fulfill a huge goal (i.e. lose weight) it can be daunting to take on a huge project like organization. So, we combat this by breaking it off into bite sized chunks that we can do in our spare time, here or there. Come up with a way to break up your research into about four groups. One method might be to use the surname of each grandparent (each of your grandfathers' surnames and your grandmothers' maiden names). There are other ways to break it up, but generally speaking, this is a good division point.
Getting Boxy With It
Get a box for each of the surnames you are using to divide things up and an extra one for "other"papers. Label each one. Remember, however you decide to break it up, we are starting with BIG, general headings. We don't want to do any detail-oriented work right now.
If you used the example of grandparents' names, you would put any document pertaining to any ancestor of that grandparent in that box. So, your grandpa's dad's military records, go into your grandpa's box. Same with your grandpa's mom's baptismal records-even though she has a different surname than the one that is on the box. Doesn't matter. Any of her parents' (and their parents') records will also go in there.
Don't Know? Don't Sweat It.
If you get confused or hung up on a record don't worry about it, put it in the "other" box for now. We'll go back to it later. The goal right now is to get every document into one of those boxes in as little time as possible. The sooner we get this step done, the sooner we get to move on to the next. When we reach the next step we're one step closer to conquering our mess and setting up an organizational system that will keep our paper's straight from now on!
Hopefully, just by finishing this step, you already feel like getting organized will be a bit easier and you can see a noticeable difference in the state of your work space!
Tara Cajacob is a historical research consultant, and has most recently launched LeafLines a line of products how-to and organization products to help family historians and genealogists discover their roots. Visit the LeafLines blog to read more about getting started with your family tree.