the mail

I catch myself watching for the mailman (postal carrier, I think is the correct term), glancing down the road, and even lifting the lid on my mailbox (that is conveniently located on the brick wall just outside my front door, look, my house was built in 1950).

Then, when the mail does come, I find myself feeling silently disappointed that it only contains credit card applications, how-to-make-your-kids-smarter classes, and advertisements for a new furnace.

Today I got mostly junk. To combat the paper influx at our house--we have 4 elementary school kids--I simply stand next to the garbage can when I open the mail. The items either go in the garbage (or to the "shred" pile to hand to my kindergartener on her way in the door from school) or to a specific file. There are only a handful of categories: (1) garbage, (2) coupon file, (3) weekly ad file, and (4) bills (I suppose this should be the first category). I do have a category called "to do" which is a catch all for anything that needs to be read, calendared, or responded to.

This simple drill cuts down on unnecessary piles and eliminates extra papers that have to be sorted. How often do you have to buy a new furnace anyway?