How much mail do you receive everyday?

Are you overwhelmed by too much mail? In this case I’m talking about physical mail (through the post office). Although you might need inbox help as well, please check out my blog post on organizing your email inbox here.

In today’s society people aren’t writing letters to each other as we once did, but we receive more mail now than ever before: phone bills, utility bills, internet and cable, catalogs, magazines, insurance claims, bank statements, credit cards etc. How can we minimize the amount of physical envelopes we receive everyday in our mailbox?

Here are 3 tips to help eliminate mail clutter:

1- automatic bill pay, paperless statements

a- Many companies give you the option for automatic bill pay. This can be a great idea to not only eliminate paper bills but also insures that you pay your bill on-time and avoid unnecessary late fees.

b- Companies also let you opt for paperless statements. Banks and credit cards among others can send you statements via email to avoid receiving more paper… It’s better for the environment and saves time as well as money. An additional tip: If you receive email statements from a company, create a folder or label in your email for this company and add that email directly to the folder/label as it comes in. This will help cutdown on too many emails in your inbox.

2- create a spot where mail will land everyday

Have a 3-tier basket to sort the mail… Top tier for bills and important letters; middle for mail belonging to others in your household; bottom for catalogs and magazines. It’s important to keep a recycling bin/shredding bucket near this spot so you can quickly discard junk mail and catalogs you don’t need, as well as shred address labels and sensitive (yet unnecessary) mail … Some households have a bin in this spot for every member in the household so it can be a landing station for all. You could even create a bulletin board for important messages in this area.

Use something like the Kvissle Magazine Rack from IKEA or the Fabric Wall-Mount Magazine Organizer from The Container Store.

3- limit magazine/newspaper subscriptions and reduce your junk mail

Take a look at your magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Are you able to keep up with your reading? Do you still enjoy them? If not, it’s time to cancel the subscriptions. Having the recycling bin and shredder handy can be a great way to curb these items from piling up throughout your home.

In addition, opting out of catalog mailing lists can be helpful; visit www.catalogchoice.org to create an account. And visit www.dmachoice.org to be removed from direct marketing mailing lists.

The main idea is consistency. The best advice to eliminate mail and paper clutter is to tackle the mail every day.

• Incoming mail
• To Pay
• Outgoing mail
• To File
• To Read