apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I know all this...it's just doing it every day that's a problem.

This is my "getting home at night" routine. It feels so natural and easy that I can't quite fathom how anyone ever collects piles and piles of mail.

Open garage.
Park car.
Walk to mail box.
Stop at garbage can on the way into the garage and throw un-needed and uninteresting things away.
Grab handbag and laptop out of passenger side of car.
Go into house.
Drop everything on the kitchen counter.
Pet cats.
Change clothes, wash up from the day.
Pour glass of wine.
Put interesting catalogs on the table for morning coffee or evening meal perusal.
Put bills on the bill stack by the phone.
Done.

Later, so that catalogs with good stuff don't pile up and so I don't feel compelled to save a whole catalog for one lamp or plate or shoe goodie, I rip out the pages I want and add them to a magnetized clip holding pages on my fridge. I usually cull the pages about once a month over saturday coffee.

I opened up a post office box at the Beverly Hills Post Office. Instead of getting my mail at my home or office, and finding some landing strip to drop the pile, I actuallly park my car, put a quarter in the meter for 5-10 minutes, go to my box and review the whole thing at the trash and the table nearly.

I toss all the wrapping around the magazines.
I open up all my statements and toss the outside and inside envelopes (I pay for all this online)
I open any junk mail. Rip off my address or personal info and toss the rest.

But my mail pile gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I guess eco-friendly has not hit the Pottery Barn, Pier 1, Staples, Office Depot, Barney's, Bergdorf's or credit card industries.

- John

P.S. Thanks for the link!

kimg, it's apparent you don't have kids!

There are a number of companies that can help you reduce your catalog and junkmail. www.grrendimes.com or www.stopthejunkmail.com are two I can think of right now. And most credit card and utility companies have a "paperless option" under billing on their websites.

This site is fantastic for stopping the catalogs you don't want to receive:

https://www.catalogchoice.org/#welcome

I signed up for greendimes.com a few weeks ago and have already noticed a decrease in my junk mail. They charge $20 but it goes to planting trees.

I too used greendimes, but it's pretty pricey for what they do which is charge you money, mail you postcards that then you have to put your own stamps on and send off to mailing/marketing lists. You can do most of it online yourself for free. Catalog choice works well.
My solution is to sort on my way into the house and have a recycling bag at the top of the stairs for envelopes and junk, while credit card offers, etc go right into the shredder, what's left goes onto my desk.

How do you get rid of non-profit mail, like donations and stuff? My grandfather has been out of his house since june, back and forth in between the hospital and nursing home and there is a never ending amount of mail he has, that we are trying to control. The worst of it is asking for donations (3-4 a day), big bulky things full of free cards, address labels and tons of paper. He has always been so generous in the past, but I don't foresee anytime in the future that he will be in the position to donate as he'll be lucky to have any of his own savings left now that he needs a certain amount of (costly) care.

I don't have room near the mail for a shredder so I use one of those shredder-hand thingies (basically scissors with five blades) for dealing with credit card offers and such. I try to pay my bills online the minute I open them. Anything that needs to be saved and filed goes in an inbox concealed in the entry table. (I'll admit this box doesn't get emptied as often as it should!) I signed up for catalog choice and it has really made a difference. I get emails from the places I shop most and haven't missed the catalogs at all. I put DVDs and magazines away when they come in, and for whatever's left, I've become a ruthless recycler. But I do wish I could get better about getting rid of back issues of magazines. They tend to stack up in a basket next to the couch until they're out of control.

Tip from a professional organizer:
Make a dedicated space to sort mail each day, incorporating elements of all of the routines mentioned above. I think a mail sorting center should include a recycling bin, a trash can/shredder, an "inbox" for items to deal with, and that person's filing system all in one place. Many people reveal that their number one organizational struggle is dealing with paper, so dealing with it simply during the sorting stage saves decision-making exhaustion later and helps circumvent the paper shuffle (which wastes time, too!)

you can go to catalogchoice.org and eliminated just the catalogs you don't want. it does help! also, you can opt out of those credit card offers at https://www.optoutprescreen.com

Anything that says presorted standard goes straight into the recycle bin. Don't even bother reading the envelope.

One of the things I love the most about my apartment building is that there's a big wicker basket in the lobby for junk mail. I grab the mail from the box, and immediately toss all of the grocery store and local business fliers. I don't get too many credit card offers since I took myself off their lists six months ago, so only occasionally do I get junk I have to take back to my apartment and cut into little pieces.

You can set up all of the routines and organization systems you want, but it's much easier to just let it never get into your apartment in the first place. I would imagine that if you offered to buy a bin or basket yourself, most building managers would go for it.

I've waded my way out of the junk mail piles with the following:

1) put a no junk mail sign up.
2) fellow Canadians: register yourself at http://www.reddotcampaign.ca/
3) sign up/register for e.bills or epost so your mail comes electronically. This has helped immensely, I cannot recommend this enough. Then I auto pay most bills with direct debit/pre auth payments so I don't forget, and pay anything else that can't be set up this way with online banking.

Credit card offers, non profit stuff, or other similar mailings, I write MOVED/Return to SENDER and ship em right back. Stops them from coming again. Sometimes you can call the place and asked to be removed too.

I will be most happy the day I recieve NO paper mail at all. What I do receive gets recycled, such as my community news letter, or elections notices.