Aaaauuuugggggh. The mail piles are driving me crazy. We have a system to deal with mail in an organized, civil way when we're at home. Clearly, we are not following it. This is one of about three piles (left on their own, they multiply). I'm ready to get back on the road.
1) Shift everything that you can to paperless online payments.
2) Stand over the trash can (or paper recycle bin) and toss all of the junk mail when you first come in the door.
That will eliminate 9/10 of it right away. After that you can sort and shred anything that is information sensitive and deal with any actual mail.
We would only get back to our PO box every 4-5 months and inevitably there was a HUGE pile of junk, about 10 items for the shredder and 2-3 pieces of actual mail. It totally ticked me off because I had to pay for the largest PO box available for stuff that was 99% garbage.
Hi NewNomads:
We did number 1 long ago.
Our system at home is four wall-mounted bins:
1 – for me to look at and deal with
2- for Kevin to look at and deal with
3 – to keep and file, and
4 – for when we bring in mail and don’t feel like opening it yet
This (a) keeps us mostly organized and (b) accounts for being lazy sometimes. We figured out that we need to design systems that work in real life, not systems that WOULD would if we were perfect.
After our last 4 month trip the bins of junk mail were astounding. Hate it.
Don’t they make a 12 Volt shredder? 8^)
Tinc: I just looked. Can’t find one. 🙂
How about these?
http://www.amazon.com/Get-Organized-Easy-Shredding-Scissors/dp/B000M8JB7S
Those are perfect!! Small, portable, no electricity needed. 🙂