Start by making a list of what the clutter is. Categories will suggest themselves. You may well end up with some open shelves, some closed boxes and some open boxes/baskets. But first you need to know what you've got before you organize.

If you like piles, do what I learned from this forum: find some very cheap boxes of different sizes which have different ways of opening and try out your your piles of clutter in those temporary boxes.

Just to start you off, here are some questions; Does the clutter have to do with items that have to go on a master calendar? Is it stuff that with discipline you could through out immediately or almost immediately after a bit of time to look at them -- like catalogues? Is there a system for getting piles that have outlived their daily use (receipts for work done, etc.) that could be moved to another place.

I have some hooks for keys for when I come home. I have a little box for change and stuff I carry in my pocket. As much stuff as possible goes on the wall.

I still have 18" x 2 ft that is way cluttered, where my bag, camera, reusable grocery bags, outgoing egg cartons, and extraneous stuff gets put.

I had a pile of "garbage' in the corner of my kitchen. No food, just paper clutter, plastic grocer bags (empty), egg cartons, junk mail, etc. Yesterday I decided to gather all of it up and throw it out! I was doing just that when a huge black spidrer jumped out of thge pile. I screamed, stomped Mr. Spider and decided "No more piles". I got motivated in a hurry! Did I tell you I'm terrified of spiders?

raptorrunner wrote: "I have some hooks for keys for when I come home. I have a little box for change and stuff I carry in my pocket. As much stuff as possible goes on the wall."

Look at this organizing tip from Martha:

A pegboard wall inside the closet door (essentially, just cover the entire wall around the closet door, inside the closet, w/ pegboard, and then put a hook or basket or whatever, anywhere you want.

I think they even put pegboard on the back of the closet door.

Sounds to me like you want the paper "clutter" to be easily accessable and not to "cluttery". The first thing that came to my mind was cubbies like teachers use for sorting students take home papers in. Each family member could have their own cubby. Left over cubbies could be for such things as the newpaper, ads, bills, outgoing mail, etc.
Another idea would be to use wall mounted stacking magazine rack like you see in doctor's offices.

I agree with justgotabme...if you are a pile person (I'm a pile person at work, but not at home)...cubbies and stackable trays are a great option to make the piles orderly.

LOL! In my office at work, I have TWELVE stackable trays, stacked up on top of each other. The tray stack is somewhere between 3 & 4 feet tall, but I've got every tray labelled and I use them so much that I hardly have to look when I need to add to take out a stack of a particular category. I've duct-taped some of the trays together, and duct-taped some spots directly to the wall for support. It doesn't look pretty, but you get the general concept where you could build or buy trays or cubbies that look decent.

Bottom line, it works. I still have my piles, and they are just all piled/sorted vertically. When a co-worker needs to get at my desk for something, my co-workers can rummage my piles and still not mess them up as long as the pile is returned to it's proper tray.

At work with my piles, the key is to make sure each tray contains active paperwork that I need and use...and is not to be confused with something that should be in it's proper project binder or in a file cabinet somewhere.

Before you build or invest in something more permanent, you could probably buy some cheap trays or creatively make some cubbies or trays out of cereal boxes around the house and experiment with it before you commit.

Tape cereal coxes together, I learned that when I visited my child's classroom. each child has his/her own box for papers to come home,etc. Very neat,orderly,practical.