[tombrossman]

> Question: why bother organizing papers?

Because being organised makes you more effective. With your 'throw it all in a box' system, you have a high barrier to finding documents in the future and this discourages you from doing so. However, with a more organised approach you are more likely to retrieve specific documents.

One example: Some mid-priced electronic device breaks a few months after you buy it. You might weigh digging through all the paperwork versus shrugging your shoulders and throwing it away. I would go straight to the warranty document and also look at my credit card issuer's warranty/returns policies(if any), and I would return the item for a replacement or refund. No biggie, only a few minutes work and I as a consumer prevail in exercising my rights.

Sounds boring but I believe it is definitely worth making the effort.

[ekianjo]

> Because being organised makes you more effective

I agree with the sentiment, but I tend to agree with the previous poster. The value of paper documents tends to be really low in the long run. I think you can keep it maybe for a few years when it comes to bills, but anything longer than that and there's not really a lot of value to go back to what you purchased/did or even where you traveled. I am also fairly organized but I tend to see as kind of futile, since I don't really need to go back and search for stuff that often.

[jcelerier]

> With your 'throw it all in a box' system, you have a high barrier to finding documents in the future and this discourages you from doing so.

In fifteen years of keeping my mail I maybe had once or twice to go back in time more than a month or two ago.

[purerandomness]

Then that system obviously doesn't solve one of your pains.

I have to dig out older documents almost daily.

[matt_the_bass]

What types of things are you looking for so frequently? Maybe you could organize a subset of papers?