How to manage your incoming post
Despite living in a digital world, it is surprising just how much paperwork still arrives through our letter boxes.
Unless you have a system for dealing with it, you’ll probably find that post accumulates in piles in various different locations, some opened, some not and important or time sensitive documents mixed in with those that aren’t.
If this sounds familiar, here are some simple tips that will help you to keep the paperwork under control:
1. Unsubscribe and go paperless.
Consider how to limit what comes into your house in the first place. Take a note of the magazines, catalogues and other marketing materials that come through your door and decide whether they are still of interest to you. If they are, think about whether you really need them in print form. Do they have the same content on their website, or can you access a digital version? For anything that isn’t relevant, unsubscribe. If you receive your bank or credit card statements in the post, you could consider going paperless. This is not only good for the environment, but it will stop the tidal wave of post coming every month.
2. Resist tackling the post as soon as you walk in the door.
Whilst it can be tempting to look at your post as soon as you arrive home, this is often a time where we are distracted putting coats and shoes away, greeting family members or carrying shopping. It’s unlikely that something that comes through the post requires immediate action, so, designate a place for all post and schedule some time each week to go through it all and give it your full attention.
3. Designate a drop zone for your post.
The key to keeping all incoming post in one place is to create a drop zone – a single place where your post always goes. Everyone in your household should know where this is, so that whomever is home first will always know where it goes. How you corral your post is up to you and will largely depend on your available space and personal aesthetic. In our house, we’ve tried a number of systems and found a simple belly basket by the front door is the simplest and most effective solution.
4. Have the right tools to hand.
It will speed up the sorting process if you have both a shredder and a box for recycling to hand, as well as the system you have in place for filing. Ideally you don’t want to be walking from room to room with piles of papers. It’s also useful to have a calendar or planner, whether that’s a physical one or digital, so that you can add appointments or events into your diary.
5. Have a system for processing paper.
Each week set aside some time to look through your post. Begin by sorting your post by recipient. Discard envelopes straight into the recycling bin and then divide the contents into two groups: those that require action, e.g. a bill or invitation that requires an RSVP and those that need filing. Regarding filing, Marie Kondo’s rule of thumb is to discard everything! Whilst this might seem extreme, what she really means is that our default tends to be to keep everything ‘just in case’. Instead, our mindset should be that we need only keep those papers which have a clear purpose.
6. Keep your filing system simple!
Whilst it can be tempting to create folders or bins for every possible category, unless you have business records, my advice would be to keep your filing system as simple as possible. For example, in our home, we have one box for ‘Health’, which contains all our family’s medical records. One ‘Cars’ box for insurance, MOT certificates and servicing records and an ‘Important’ box which contains items like passports, wills and other legal documents and so on.