apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Um, so how should one use a paper tray?

i use the mesh paper trays pictured above as a charging station, with a power strip & the devices on top & the various cords clamped with binder clips & tucked underneath. i use bits of colored ribbon tied around each end of the cable to know which plug goes with which device & can easily cut power to the entire shebang to avoid vampire power drainage.

it's not the most elegant solution in the world, but it was a good way to use the paper trays we weren't using otherwise (except as a place on the desk where paper clutter would gather).

I love the paper tray thingy, but then run into the problem of it being filled with too much paper and i forget that the most important papers should be in there and the rest in another organizer. Then that gets cluttered how do i solve those problems?

i use a paper tray to do exactly what is recommended against. but i know it catches my important documents before i have time to file them properly in my file system because i put them there intentionally. so i don't see it as an incorrect use. i think filing them in folders at my desk will only prolong their life at my desk. they do need to get filed after all.

I have a paper tray on my desk with my computer monitor on top (since desks are never the right height for the monitors). I store envelopes and labels in one slot and my notebook in the other one. It seems to work for me.

I'm not sure how the tiered file folder holder would help - if things get buried in the trays (guilty!), they'll get buried in that too. Please enlighten. I think the system's not the problem. But, I'm so open to all improvements.

I do not understand the allure of a paper try. It is a glorified pile.

my husband had one of these and it was nothing more than a cr@p collector (i assure you it was filled with cr@p, more cr@p and a third shelf of cr@p - nothing important). i dumped all of his "very important documents" into a plastic bag and i threw the paper tray out yesterday. now he has to file, with no place to pile his cr@p....

Well, my job involves quickly assembling and disassembling project-related binders, so I have a stack of paper trays with page protectors in one tray, index dividers in another, section dividers in another. Makes it easy to grab what I need. I think paper trays are fine for storing frequently used supplies. But I have always found them useless for filing or managing incoming paper, so I do the file folder/file rack thing.

We use a pair around the house and they work in the simple manner of separating who's mail/bills/etc are whose. If one of us cleans we drop any found papers into the other's paper tray. That way things stay relatively divided and more importantly: un-lost.

Paper trays organize and contain the pile. They are really effective for workspaces. I have had the hardest time finding decent front-loading paper trays. At work, my "IN" & "Out" boxes are these "vintage" metal trays that are beat to dickens. My assistant likes side-by-side trays and mostly I'm finding the side loading stacking trays. Been looking for a replacement for weeks that doesn't cost and arm and a leg.

I draw a lot (it's one of my favourite hobbies), so my paper tray (the Dokument one from Ikea in dark grey, cheap and clean-looking!) is extremely useful - top tier has blank paper (also good for the printer), middle tier has sketches I've already done and still need to scan, and the bottom one has documents I need easy access to, spare bits of stationery, a bus time table, duct tape, a few little notepads, USB cords for my phone and mp3 player, my USB drive, blu-tack, chapstick, my glasses cloth... okay, it's not elegant, but it's useful!

My paper trays end up a hideous mess of stuff with only the occasional piece of paper. To avoid this, my current solution is an old jewelry box that I can simply shove everything into, close the lid and hope for the best.