How to Organize Incoming Mail
Hey there and welcome back!
This month I am going to be talking about all things paper and setting up filing systems. For this first week I would like to talk about how to set up and organize any mail that is coming into your home. I will show you how to set up a system so you don’t have mail and paper piles all over the house and how to maintain that system as well. So here we go!
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1. Pick Your Place
The first thing I’d like you to do is determine a place in your house where all of your mail will go. For instance, I usually have the mail in my hand when I get home for the day. So that usually also means that I have other things in my hands like my work bag, purse, and lunch bag. Needless to say, my hands are full when I first walk in the door. This is why I have created a “drop zone” for when I first walk in the door. My drop zone is where I have a specific spot right when I walk in so I can take off my coat and shoes, put down my bags neatly, and drop the mail. Maybe you have a Command Center already, or would like to set one up. This is something that you can definitely keep in your command center.
The trick to this is picking a convenient place in your house that you will access your mail and put it neatly somewhere right away as soon as it comes in. If you come in the house through a garage, you may have a spot in the garage right next to the entry door before you even come in the house. If your routine every day is to go to your office, then you can store your mail in your office. As long as you will go to that spot, it is okay to keep your mail there.
2. Set Up A Bin
After deciding where you are going to keep your mail, we are going to set up a bin/basket to contain your mail. You should get a basket or bin that is wide enough to hold expandable file folders. You are going to put labeled, expandable file folders into this basket and eventually your papers and mail will go into these folders. Here are some of the categories you should or could have depending on your situation:
A separate folder for each person receiving mail in the home
Coupons/Gift Cards
Taxes
To File
Immediate action
You could use a wall organizer in your command center, office, or right when you walk in the door. Here are a few examples:
3. Add A Waste Basket
If you have extra space where your mail is, I would suggest adding two small waste basket right by your mail bin. One for recycle and one for shred. You can use these to get rid of any “junk” mail right away before it even hits your mail bin. I will go through this process in the next step. If you do not have the room, or just don’t like how it looks, then don’t put it there and simply put the mail into the bin folders.
4. Sort the Incoming Mail & Papers
Now that you have this all set up, here is what the process is going to look like when you bring mail or papers into your home.
You come home with your mail and your kids backpacks. You sort through the mail. If it is “junk mail” you put it into the appropriate waste basket. If it’s a catalog or something you still want to look at or need, it goes into the folder with that persons name on it.
You then go through your children’s backpacks. If there are any permission slips, or anything that needs your attention or “action” on, you put that paper either into immediate action or the persons folder who handles that area.
5. Take Action
The easiest way to go through all of your mail is to pick a day and time once a week that you will go through your folder. This is the time when you will go through all of the incoming mail from that week. Go through everything and take action on anything that needs to get done that week. Maybe a bill is due that week, or a permission slip needs to be signed. Whatever has to get done, DO IT.
If there is something that you can’t get to this week, leave it in your folder for the following week. If you are opening mail that you have taken action on and completed, you will then decide if you need to save it, or if it can be recycled or shredded. If you have to save it, you can put it in the “To File” folder. Is this important information you need to file your tax returns? Put this paper in the “Taxes” folder.
6. File Paperwork
The nice thing about having the “To File” folder, is that you don’t have to spend time every week filling all of the papers. You can see that in step 5, it didn’t really seem to take too long to go through the mail. So maybe you would like to wait to file the papers until that folder gets full and then spend a little extra time once a month to file everything. Or, if you don’t want the papers to pile up in that folder, you can file those papers every week when you are done going through your mail.
Looking for more? I’ve put together this simple Incoming Mail Process that will help you sort through your papers and decide what to do with them right away.
Grab the Incoming Mail Process
Talk soon, friend!