You open a drawer, a desk, a case, a box, even an envelope and you find this paper.
This one paper can do one of two things:
1) it can be nothing but raise the question of why was it kept all these years
or
2) open a world of “I didn’t know that” and take you on a journey you didn’t know existed.
What kind of journey or where that journey leads depends, of course, on what is written on the paper. And, what the paper lives in can be as equally important. If an envelope, whose names are on it?, what is the return address?, what is the mailing address?.
Perhaps it is an envelope that never was intended to be mailed but to hold that paper, what is written on the envelope?, who is it too?, or what, if anything, is written on it? Was it in a file folder, a large envelope, loose, or wrapped in a ribbon?
Was it a dance card?, a page torn out of a magazine or book?
How recent is the paper? Is it old, 
or is it not so long ago?
What kind of paper is it?, a letter, a drawing, a doodle, a document, a photo, a statement, a memento, an official government document, a message to someone? What kind is the paper itself, lined paper, specialty, official document, post-it-note, scented, torn?
What is the significance of the paper? Why was it kept all these many years or not so long ago?
Don’t discard those papers so fast without considering the importance they might have. Some doodle that became the device of the decade or the century is significant.
Someone kept it for a reason, take time to read it, read what came with it, think about where it was found, think about the date of it, even the place it was written from or to.
As the world become more electronic, love letters, messages, holiday cards, birth announcements, wedding announcements, mailed letters, even documents signed electronically are eliminating the written word.
Does anyone clip articles or events from newspapers anymore?
humblegenealogy 