​This month JAM Organizing presents another informative article from a guest blogger. Enjoy!

Accountants and the IRS recommend keeping your last seven years of tax returns and supporting documentation, and that's what I tell my clients. I was recently able to help a client purge over 224 lbs of well-organized tax documents spanning the last 46 years. 

Let me say that again. Being disorganized is costing you money. You may not have personally experienced that single large loss that properly hammered the point home, but I can guarantee you've felt some of the smaller losses. The smaller losses add up over time and make a big impact on your wallet and earning potential.

No judgment here. The struggle to get organized and maintain it is universal. It looks different in every home and in every business, and the root causes of disorganization can be just as varied. We can all benefit from a quick look around our home and our lives to see how we are losing money by being disorganized and what we can do to change it.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and some of the examples can easily fit into more than one category. I just want you to see how getting organized and finding the systems and strategies that work best for you, your family, and your business can help greatly reduce the cost you're currently paying.