How to check the mail

"To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression 
you have when you first see a letter from them."
Arthur Schopenhauer

When I was little, I walked down the block and reached up on my tippy toes to check the mail every day.  It was so exciting and fun to see who sent a letter or a card or a shiny catalog.  My girlies are the same way; they love checking the mail.  

When does that change? When does the excitement wear off? When you are the one paying the bills? When the handwritten letters were outnumbered by offers and scammers?  I don’t know, but at some point checking the mail became a chore, not a gift.

However, someone has to check the mail, and it may as well be you.  Let me help you make it a little easier and a little less of a hassle.

First, get less mail.  Call catalog companies and decline their catalogs.  Cancel magazine subscriptions for magazines you never read.  Call all of your utility companies and request paperless billing. Do this also with banks, insurance companies, and any other entity that will allow it.

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Second, check the mail every day it comes.  The less there is to go through, the quicker you can get through the pile. 

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Third, take a few minutes to separate the mail when you check it.  If you have time to grab it, you have a minute to look through it.  Separate junk mail from real mail.  Put the junk mail into the recycling bin immediately.  Open all the envelopes, and recycle those as well.  If anything needs to be shredded, take it to your shredder right then.  Shredding three pieces of mail takes about 15 seconds.  Shredding a month’s worth of mail may take an hour.  Place the mail you need to deal with in a neat pile, and put it in your to-do box.  

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Fourth, deal with the mail in your to-do box as soon as possible. Answer the letter. Pay the bill. Change the address.  File the information.  

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Lastly, remember to leave your counters clean, and don’t let the mail pile up.  Subscribe to the “if it only takes five minutes, do it now” philosophy.