Guidlines for keeping adminstrative paperwork I am not sure if this question is best here, workplace.sx, or someplace else ...

I would like to clean off my desk before the semester starts (I am lucky and still have a couple of weeks). My department is far from paperless and many things only get distributed in paper form. While I would love to be organized enough to file away the paperwork from each meeting as it happens, I don't. Instead I have a large pile of all of last years meetings on my desk. I feel like most of these meetings do not directly affect me. I have piles from previous years stuck in my file cabinet. Is it worth saving unorganized papers from meetings or should I just dump them. Is there a better strategy going forward (preferably one that only requires intervention twice a year.)?
Personally, I would recommend that you start taking notes at these meetings and toss all the handouts. Include the name &amp; contact info of the person doing most of the talking in your notes so that you can contact them in the future if necessary. I use an electronic note-taking tool with user-defined tags to keep track of everything, as I've found it easier to search later on; experiment with different approaches to see what works best with you.

This approach works with most types of handouts, but for things like calendars and class rosters you'll still want to work with paper. Personally, I use something like this; I have two on my desk and I haven't needed more in a while, as I throw out folders when done with them. Even if you just stick them in a huge pile, though, it'll still be less huge than your previous pile, so at least you're better off.