As far as New Year resolutions go, one of my annual favourites is to resolve to go paperless and to reduce my environmental footprint. However, as with most resolutions( set in stone on the 1st of January) my resolve to read online magazines, not to print bank statements, and to reduce the piles of family letters, birthday cards and children’ s artworks all fall foul to the curse of the resolutions fairy by Easter.
As expats, however, keeping our family archives( photos, videos, bank statements, drawings, birthday cards to you and me) in check is even more important than it would be if you lived in the same house, in the same village, in the same country for the next 50 years. For expats, it’ s a fact of life that in the near, or even distant future, we will all be tasked with shipping our accumulated possessions to our next expat location, or back to our home country where let’ s face it, space is at a premium.
Maggie McKenzie challenges her hoarding instincts by archiving her family history
So what should you keep? What should you archive? And what should you throw away? These are important questions in a quest for paperless living but with hoarding firmly embedded in my DNA these questions need to be answered carefully! Very carefully in fact, for as mothers, we are often the custodians of our family archives and we hold in our power the ability to archive a memory forever or destroy a child’ s favourite picture in a moment of paperless madness. Here are my top tips for becoming( almost) paperless before next year’ s resolutions start in earnest again.
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What are family archives?
This is very subjective and dependent upon each family. In short, family archives are effectively materials that tell your family’ s story through photos, videos, cards, children’ s artwork, family letters and assorted memorabilia. These elements hold different sentimental value to each family and this determines if you keep them, archive them, archive then discard or simply discard.
While less sentimental, family archives also include bank statements, insurance documents, tax returns, birth and mar-
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