As I try to whittle away at all the needless time sinks in my life, I have found that snail mail takes up a surprising amount of time. I don’t get a lot of mail, by any standard, but so little of what I do get is meaningful, that I tend to ignore all of it. It piles up on my dining room table and is a constant eye sore.
In an effort to save time, I try to sort my mail no more than once a week. It gets sorted into one of the following piles:
- Requires Action (bills, invitations, etc)
- Recycle
- To File
- To Shred
I try to work through the Requires Action pile immediately after sorting. Otherwise, this pile continues to sit and be an eyesore. I pay bills, respond to invitations, etc and then immediately sort the mail into one of the other piles. For example, after a bill is paid, it goes into the To File pile. This process has been manageable but it’s not ideal.
I still have piles of mail sitting around at all times. More mail comes every day. No matter how diligent I am (and frankly I’m not very), it never ends. I’ve decided to take a new approach. Instead of managing my mail, I’m focusing on eliminating it altogether. Here’s what I’ve done so far:
- I’ve signed up for paperless statements from all the services that offer them.
- I signed up for Green Dimes (a junk-mail elimination service)
- I’ve asked to be removed from all credit bureau mailing lists (1-888-5OPTOUT)
I’m hoping to get to the point where the only items I get in the mail are DVDs from Netflix and the occasional bill. I’ll report back on how it goes and what other things I try. Do you have any good tips on eliminating snail mail? Please share them in the comments.