Thursday, January 20, 2011

21 Days to Getting Organized Day 17

Day #17 ~ Getting Organized Challenge (The mail station)

I used to have a more centralized mail station until I rearranged the kitchen and repurposed the cabinet as the Tupperware cabinet. But that's OK because the way we sort mail doesn't need to be location specific. Most of our bills are set up as online billing & payment, so that cuts down on the amount of mail we have coming in every month. Also, we sort the mail as soon as it comes in, even if it's just a quick go-through.

Here's how it works:

The mail gets brought home from the post office:



It gets sorted out into 3 piles: 1 is recycling, 1 is garbage, and the last 1 is to-do something with.



Recycling goes into the recycling, garbage goes into the garbage, and then the to do something with pile is gone through, and sorted by whose mail it is.

Bills go here:



And people-specific mail gets put on his or her desk. (No pictures for that...my desk is clean. Nobody else's is. Yet.)

For items that need filing, I get out the portable file:



When I was setting it up, I came across Toni's post about how she did her filing system, which was very helpful.

I have different categories (Auto, Cats, Insurance, Investments, Taxes), and we each have our own file folder. Within each category, there's a specific file folder for a specific thing, such as in the Auto folder, there are 2 file folders--one for the van, and one for the car.



I also have my family color coded for the big family calendar. It saves me having to write who's going where, and we can see at a glance who has what going on everyday. I've been known to get a little cranky when something gets sprung on me that SHOULD HAVE BEEN written on the calendar. ;) (I get the calendar from the Dollar aisle at Target, and keep the previous year's for reference so I can be forewarned about things that tend to come up every year.)




It's not fancy, but it works. Now if I could just get a good launch pad system going, we'd be set!

1 comment:

Patty said...

Looks great! Oddly I never thought of have separate folders for each vehicle. A duh moment for me LOL! Thanks for the idea, gonna go do that!w