Tackling the Mail – Tips from the Professional Home Organizer
As January comes to a close and you are setting up systems to keep organized through the rest of 2015, it’s important to address one specific area that leads to a great amount of clutter: your mail! Rain or shine, snow or sleet, the mail is delivered to your home regularly. Bills, catalogs, junk mail…it adds up quickly. Without a clear system in place, all of that mail becomes yet another overwhelming chore. Here are some home office organizing ideas from a professional organizer in New York City for managing your mail:
First, you need to identify a space dedicated to incoming mail. This could be a basket or bin near your front door, or a spot in your family communication center or desk. Having a designated home for mail keeps it off counters and tables and saves you lots of time searching for it.
Next, have a specific time that you sort through and file your mail every day. This can be whatever time works for you, whether it’s right after dinner or right when you get home from work. The timeframe is your choice, but the key is consistency. By sorting your mail daily, you’ll prevent an unnecessary pile up and you won’t lose any important mail.
When sorting your mail, the best home office organizing idea is to develop a system. One of the most important items delivered in the mail are your bills, and you’ll want a designated space for unpaid bills. To avoid missing a deadline and accruing late fees, it’s important to open your bills as they come in so you can keep track of due dates and make payments appropriately. As soon as they are paid, file them away. When things like invitations or event reminders come in the mail, immediately add the dates and information to your calendar and if you will need to refer back to the invite put it in a pending folder.
Another frequent mail item is junk mail. This could be flyers, advertisements, circulars, or catalogs you don’t want. Instead of letting them pile up, throw them out or recycle them immediately. If you receive magazines in the mail, put them somewhere you will actually read them. Set up a 1 in 1 out rule so that there are never more than 1 or 2 issues of a specific magazine in your reading pile. If they are no longer of interest to you, cancel the subscriptions immediately.
Though often times checking the mail is a cringe worthy chore, it truly doesn’t have to be with a little bit of time and a dedicated routine. You can stop the overwhelm this year by developing a mail system that works for you and fits your needs. Your professional organizer in New York City knows that mail delivered to your home is not the only source of information overload, so check out our next blog on how to tackle your overflowing email inbox!