Coping with Paper Mail: Strategies for Weeding and Keeping

Though I believe that junk email far outnumbers junk snail mail, many of us are still bombarded on a daily basis by paper mail. So what's a busy person to do?

Try These Suggestions: Begin dealing with your mail by standing over a large wastebasket and/or recycle bin.

  1. Look at the stamp. If the stamp is bulk rate or under 24 cents, you can be pretty well-assured that it is some form of unrequested solicitation. Throw it away - that is unless you really need another credit card or want to donate to the charity. Be careful though not to discard a bill from your credit card company. They usually mail their bills at less than first class rate, sometimes bulk rate.
  2. Look at the return address. Do you know who sent it? Is it something you want to spend your time on? Mailing houses and mail marketers are getting very creative in getting your attention. Become versed in their scam tactics.
  3. Catalogs. If you're not a catalog shopper, get rid of them right away. If you are a catalog shopper, keep a separate box or drawer or basket for catalogs. When a current one comes in, throw away the previous edition so your pile contains only the most recent ones.
  4. Bills. Save time at bill paying time by getting the bills ready to pay as soon as you open them. Open the bill, quickly review and discard the excess pages, then paperclip the bill and the return payment envelope together. Put them in a large manila envelope or folder titled "Bills Payable." You could save even more time by creating a list of your monthly bills (photocopy one for each month) which would include the name of the payee and space next to it to write the amount payable. When you sit down to write your bills, either by computer or by hand, you know exactly how much you owe and you can expedite the check writing process.
  5. Magazines and Newsletters. If you subscribe to the magazine or newsletter AND you have time to read it and you find value in it, then either read it right away or put it in your "to read" stack. If however, you receive it without subscription or you subscribe but don't get to it or find value in it, cancel the subscription! Your time is too valuable to waste on reading worthless material or feeling guilty about not getting to it.
  6. Personal Letters Enjoy them as they are a rarity these days!

TERMS OF PERMISSION TO REPRINT

This tip may be reprinted when the following byline is included:

Abby Marks Beale is founder of The Corporate Educator, a professional speaking and training company specializing in helping with busy people work smarter, faster and just plain better. Go to www.TheCorporateEducator.com.

$50 Online Course Coupon
When You Join
Our Mail List
Read More
Rev It Up Reading is a subsidiary of The Corporate Educator. Since 1988, we have been teaching faster, more effective reading to busy professionals, educators and students in a wide variety of corporations, associations and schools. We offer speaking services, on-site and online training programs, teleclasses, books and audio recordings about how to manage any reading workload and how to read better and faster. ALL of our training is practical and immediately useful to your life and work.