Managing your Mail

Q: What is the best system for incoming mail?  I inevitably end up with a large pile of mail/junk mail on my desk.

A: Mail is one of the largest contributors to paper clutter in a home or office.  

The first step is to go through your mail as it comes in. Letting it accumulate, even for a couple of days, is what gets the snowball forming.  

You may be tired of hearing: "a place for everything and everything in it's place" but that is the answer here.  The next step is to have a place for the various pieces of mail you receive.  In a nutshell, create a temporary holding area for bills to be paid,  a file system to store documents you need to keep, use paper recycle bins, shred anything that has personal information and you are on your way. When you put away each piece of mail in it's place, there will be no chance of a pile up. 

The last step is consistency.  Adopting a new discipline takes a few weeks to become a habit. Stick with it and the piles of mail will appear only when you've returned from a vacation.

Getting Your Life in Order!

~S