have them, more than likely you have them too: piles of papers at various points around the house.
While we haven't completely tamed the paper beast, we're moving in that direction, thanks to a few habits that help.

A place for everything, and everything in its place
First, we don't let paper coming into the house sit. Every item has a place. That may be a filing drawer, a recycle bin, or the front of the refrigerator. These storage areas get culled at least once a year. If I haven't needed it by then, out it goes. Tax records are the only exception to this rule.
Whoever brings the mail in does a preliminary sort. Some items can be directly recycled. Envelopes get recycled immediately after opening the mail. Catalogs have a place, and so on.
In our house, the daily newspaper is a high-priority item. Some days it gets fought over first thing in the morning, others the last person may not read it until bedtime. Whoever is last makes certain it goes into the recycling bin.

Direct-mail deluge
During some seasons, it seems like we get more catalogs than any other mail. Some I look forward to and some are obviously the result of being on a chance mailing list. If you want to be removed from general mailing lists, you can contact the Direct Mail Association and they will remove your name; there is a downloadable form [1] to simplify contacting them.

We have a square basket that sits in our living room. Catalogs get placed there, and about once a month or so, we go through and cull old or unwanted ones. Some companies send out five or six catalogs a season, and you only need the latest version. Having a compact place makes it easy to see what we want to look at, and limits the pile-up effect.

Write it once

One thing I'm still learning is that many times I don't need to hold on to a piece of paper. Newsletters, reminders, things with important dates on them can be dealt with by using a master calendar. All dates, directions, lists of what to bring get written on the calendar. Then the paper gets disposed of. An added benefit accrues from this practice: the family's commitments are made plain, so you know who is where.

Art project pile
My daughter is a prodigious artist. If I wanted to keep everything she made, we'd be able to wallpaper. While I know that we cannot keep everything, and simply don't want to, it's difficult for her to think of anything being recycled.
One way we've found to deal with this is to have her gather her drawings and crafts together. Each week or so, I ask her to choose a few of her favorites. We discard the rest. Out of her favorites, I choose the ones I find most representative of her style and put them in a special file folder. The "leftovers" are finally ones that she can let go of after enough time. I also try to help her focus on the process of making art, not so much the keeping of the work.

This works for drawings. Three-dimensional objects can't fit in a file cabinet. I try to take pictures of the special things she makes and then put those pictures in her special box.

These habits can begin to create order out of the chaos that too much paper can cause. If I can do it, anyone can.

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