From “10 Things I Hate about You”:
Chastity: I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?
Bianca: I think you can in Europe.
Usually I'm called in when someone has reached the alarming state of “overwhelmed”. I'm starting to realize what gets a person worked into this state.
Has this ever happened to you?: You have a room that needs attention. You sit down in the room and attack with a vengeance. You make pile after pile. Then all of the sudden, you get called away. Someone needs a snack, a ride, to go potty, to be picked up....etc. Then when you go back to the room in question, you have no idea what the piles mean. So you quit (until another day)
It occurred to me that a vital part is missing in my “class”. You have to have a game plan. And my game plan for you is this: Start big...as in big picture. We're not gonna miss the forest for the trees...put the trees down and start looking for the forest.
Organizing a room with multiple functions, like this office, cannot be done all in one sitting. You have to do a big sort first, then you can parcel off the little sorts one at a time. This keeps you from being overwhelmed. In this particular room, I went for the really big sort first. Papers on one side of the room, and Items on the other.

Once that was finished, I sorted the Papers into:
financial,
school,
personal,
warranties and instructions,
and church.
Then I sorted the Items into:
parts,
memorabilia,
electronics,
and misc.

Once this stage was reached, the room was looking in pretty good shape, but there was still time left so I made a big mess once again as I took my medium sort and sorted it further.
Financial was broken down into:
health,
banking,
investments,
and home services

Warranties and Instructions was broken down into:
large appliances,
outside,
TV & DVD etc,
Computer,
Kid/Baby,
Kitchen
and misc.
The homeowner already had file folders made up for the different financial papers, but had fallen behind in filing. Now she could combine the two piles at a later date and with a smaller degree of stress. She could now pick up two file folders and go through them, consolidating one section at a time (instead of having to go around the room and gathering all of the papers to be filed).

Start small by thinking big. It works. It really works.