The Night Shredder: Confessions of a Repentant Paper Hoarder
Summary
As an avid reader, I have been accumulating a variety of documents: virtually everything from books and reference materials to loosely bound reports and assorted magazines. Coupled with my hoarding mentality, I am literally getting buried in an avalanche of accumulated papers! I have recently discovered that a shredding machine may effectively solve this concern. Every night – as a recent retiree – I sort a few files and shred at least one paper. I hope to develop this nightly shredding into a sustainable habit so my family will have fewer papers to dispose of when my mortal body leaves this earth!
Table of Contents
- The Paper Trap: How It All Began
- Confessions of a Paper Hoarder
- Papers Everywhere: A Home Drowning in Clutter
- Shredding my Way to Freedom
- The Night Shredder: Hero of the Dark?
1. The Paper Trap: How It All Began
Admittedly, part of this blog’s title ‘Night Shredder’ is deliberately rhymed with ‘Knight Rider’.
Conceptualized by Glen A. Larson in 1982, the Knight Rider was a popular action-packed American TV series. It portrayed the detective story of Michael Knight, a former police officer recruited by the Foundation for Law and Government – with the acronym FLAG – a secretive organization. The FLAG gave Michael a new identity as well as a high-tech car named KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand). Equipped with contemporary artificial intelligence or AI, KITT had sophisticated features such as a turbo boost and an ability to communicate with humans.
Between 1982 to 1986, the beloved TV show was a mixture of futuristic technology, fast-paced action adventures, and KITT as its iconic car. The series centers around Michael and KITT working together as a human-and-machine tandem. The duo had confronted risky situations while protecting the innocents and fighting various crimes. Michael had to rely on KITT’s sophisticated technological features to overcome their challenges during their confrontation with villains.
As Michael Knight’s namesake, I am not fighting with dangerous criminals. Rather, I am fighting against myself. The psychological issue: my hoarder’s mentality. I have been accumulating more paper-based documents, which has been faster than my disposing rate. Rather than acquiring a sophisticated car akin to a KITT, I have acquired an unlikely friendly machine to minimize my paper-based stuff. I am referring to a shredding machine (Figure 1).
This blog’s primary purpose is to describe the evolution of my nightly shredding of papers. The paper-based documents I have accumulated through the years are mounting – faster than I have been able to dispose them. Hence, I’m trying to establish a daily habit of nightly shredding of papers, thereby eliminating them forever.
After this introduction, I first describe my nasty habit of paper hoarding. Then, I narrate where these voluminous and mounting papers are located. Thirdly, I describe my discovery of a shredding machine to dispose of my ever-accumulating documents. I wrap up with a discourse about a sustainable habit of nightly shredding. In this way, my family shall have fewer papers to dispose of when I leave this earthly world!
2. Confessions of a Paper Hoarder
Since high school, I have developed the habit of reading about a wide array of subjects. As a sentimental person, though, I have also developed the habit of compiling the associated paper-based documents. In particular, I have kept books, magazines, and other publications. This habit was relatively valuable for my role as a researcher. More specifically, some of these accumulated documents have become ready references in my latest academic job, particularly in my writing chores.
When I retired in September 2024, however, such a document-keeping habit has become more of a liability. And, of course, my ever-growing volume of accumulated paper-based stuff has become a source of annoyance to my wife, who treats them simply as clutter, if not outright solid wastes! Being swamped with stuff, I listed decluttering as my top 2024 New Year’s resolution as reflected in my previous decluttering blog that you may access through this link.
Part of the complication is that I have become messier with my living space as I’ve grown older. I have fallen into the bad habit of simply dumping my stuff all over the place – which I have carried up to this retirement phase of my life.
3. Papers Everywhere: A Home Drowning in Clutter
Let me briefly describe where my cluttered papers are located. Currently, I stay alone at my departed parents-in-law’s ancestral house. That the cluttered papers are all over the place is an understatement! As an illustrative example, assorted papers are jumbled with my electronic gadgets and unsorted paraphernalia in my upper bed (Figure 2). It’s simply a despicable sight! In the same room, half-sorted documents are jammed into the wooden filing cabinet (Figure 3).
There are more paper-based kinds of stuff in our own unoccupied house. These file boxes of folders and papers are just left languishing in the table (Figure 4).
Adjacent to the house is a stock room where I also store more unsorted stuff. Such items include more file boxes of papers (Figure 5). You can see that I still keep copies of Time magazine of yesteryears!
Paradoxically, I still have languishing documents from the Graduate School of the Palawan State University (PSU) where I recently retired. I have already carried over most of the file boxes for the references I used in my post-graduate classes (Figure 6).
Although I have officially retired as a PSU professor for the past seven months, I still accumulate paper-based documents. I am occasionally engaged in some chores that involve paperwork. One of them is the review of master theses and doctoral dissertations. At the minimum, a master thesis is 100 pages. Meanwhile, a doctoral dissertation typically exceeds 300 pages, including references and appendices.
Examining these graduate school manuscripts often involves physically printing the documents for reading and evaluation. At times, I still take-home the newsletters of my various socio-civic organizations – as well as books and magazines – that I purchase from the bookshop. These papers are likened to an avalanche that slowly smothers me. Like Michael Knight, I need a KITT or a machine to help me reduce my hoarded and accumulated papers.
4. Shredding my Way to Freedom
The eureka moment came probably when I visited the PSU’s Office of the University & Board Secretary (OUBS). This office handles and/or produces voluminous documents daily as part of the university’s operation. Yet I noticed that the OUBS does not store that many paper files.
The surprisingly simple reasons are two-fold. First, the staff scans most of the documents and then archives them electronically. Secondary, most of their draft papers are fed into a shredding machine for disposal.
As an afterthought, I brought home a shredding machine (Figure 7). As a hoarder, though, I was at first mentally resistant to shred any of my accumulated papers. Hence, I only started shredding low-value items such as newsletters and magazines (Figure 8).
Later, I forced myself to shred drafts of my technical papers (Figure 9). Whenever I get a piece of paper that I have already read or acted upon, my screening question is: “Would something terrible happen if I shred this?” If the answer is ‘no’, I shred it straightaway.
5. The Night Shredder: Hero of the Dark?
Excessive accumulation and hoarding of papers have been a habit developed through the years. Now retired at 63, this habit has become more of a liability. In some ways, it has become a tyrant. According to Friedrich Schiller, a German philosopher, and playwright of the early 19th century, “The worst tyrant in the world is habit”. (As a key figure in the German Weimar Classicism movement, Schiller believed in the power of habit to restrict creativity and human freedom.)
There is an adage that the best way to deal with a negative habit is to counteract it with a positive one. Hence, I am developing the habit of nightly paper shredding to somehow reduce my paper clutter. Only time will tell how long I can sustain it.
For now, I’m pretty satisfied that once I have shredded any paper document in the evening, no power on earth can bring it back to its readable form (Figure 10)!
REFLECTION FOR READERS
Dear Readers,
Thank you for joining me on this “shred-tastic” journey through my battle with paper hoarding. If you’re reading this, you’ve either:
- Laughed in solidarity (because your desk looks like a recycling bin exploded), or
- Come to judge me (…and yet, here you are).
So, fess up!
- Do you also have an “I’ll deal with this later” pile that’s now a permanent interior design feature?
- Has your family ever staged an intervention over your “filing system” (a.k.a. the floor)?
- Did you misplace something important in your paper avalanche and blame the dog? (Just me?)
Share your confessions in the comments! Let’s turn this into a support group for recovering paper hoarders. Bonus points if you include:
- Your most “creative” excuse for keeping receipts from 2008, or
- A photo of your paper chaos (we promise not to call Marie Kondo).
Together, we’ll laugh, cry, and maybe – just maybe – find the courage to feed the shredder!
Copyright © 2025 by Michael D Pido
I still have my review materials that I have been meaning to give away to barristers for this year! I can’t bring myself to do it because I feel like giving away my baby, something I’ve spent blood, sweat, and tears on hahaha. I call my pile of materials my “emotional support readings”.
As to receipts, I was taught by the best boss in PSU the value of keeping important documents in one marked clear book, organized per year. The lesson turned into habit and saved me when records were wiped and I was asked to pay tuition which I had already settled. I was able to present receipts from as early as 2016 😎.