A common source of paper clutter in households is unopened, unattended to mail. Some of the people I have worked with have developed a downright fear of opening their mail (for a variety of reasons) and let it pile up for years. Others just don’t have a proper system in place that prevents the mail and other paper coming into their home from accumulating in various places all over their house.
If you recognize yourself in that, you can follow these simple steps (ideally AFTER dealing with the paper category KonMari-style):
Empty Mailbox Regularly
Check your mailbox every day or at least once a week. Make it a habit to get your mail every day you get home from work, after your morning walk or when you get back from the gym. If you tie this activity to another one, you’re more likely to remember and actually do it.
Quick Sort
Once you have your mail, take a couple minutes to open all the envelopes and sort everything for further processing. Here are the 3 categories to sort into:
1. Junk Mail
Recycle your junk mail immediately. You might even want to consider to not even bring it into your home if you can do the sorting at your mailbox. Typically, if you live in an apartment complex, paper trash boxes are located right in the mailbox room. So you can leave unwanted junk mail there.
2. Actionable mail (< 2 minutes)
Take action on the mail that needs your attention but takes only 2 minutes or less to process per item. For example, skim through a restaurant flyer if you want to see if it is of interest to you or have a look at your current bank statement. Then, if no further action needs to be taken, recycle or shred those as well.
3. Actionable mail (> 2 minutes)
Put the mail you need to take care of for longer than 2 minutes (e.g., paying a bill, replying to a letter) in your “to take care of” paper box. If you haven’t done so already, make arrangements to attend to the contents of this very box at a future date and/or time.
Schedule & Adhere To Regular Processing
For instance, you could schedule a recurring weekly “to take care of” paper box processing session in your calendar. Treat it like any other appointment. After the pieces of paper are attended to, go ahead and dispose of them as well. If needed for future reference, scan or file them.
And that’s it! How have you been decluttering and organizing your mail?
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