Thanks, Allison.
What you describe is what I eventually do, once I start declutttering the papers.

But I must admit, it's not only the paper itself that's the problem.
As if sits on my desk for months, it accumulates dust. And then I want to dust it off before shuffling the papers around. But how do you dust paper?

So I shy away from dealing with it at all
A bit compulsive, I'm afraid....

: When I am sorting papers, I always
: have a group of things I don't
: know quite what I want to do with.
: I designate a folder for those
: things, and I paperclip similar
: things together so that when I do
: figure it out, the items are
: organized. Then in the meantime, I
: can reduce the paper clutter by
: dealing with all the other things.
: Usually I have much more paper
: that can be recycled, shredded or
: put away than I do oddball papers.
: Allison