52 Tiny Changes
You've done it before. Tried to change your whole life in 30
days. Only to fizzle out at day 10 because it take too much time.
Join me in making a small change each week and by the end of the
year you will have made 52 improvements to your life!
52changes@encouragingcoach.com
with 52 changes in the subject line. Or come here each week for
a new change and some steps to help you along the way.
Tiny Change #33. Set up a filing system for your mail:
to do, finance, other family members, or to file
Do
have a daily system for sorting mail? Or are you more likely to
have a pile on the dining room table, one in the kitchen, another
in the office...
If you sort mail for just 10 minutes a day, you won't have to
worry about that pile of mail once a week or once a month that
seems to take you hours to pile throught. And you rarely see the
end.
First, set up your action file. It can either be a rolling file
cart, file folders in your file drawer, baskets or my preferred
method, a vertical file stand on your desk.
Label the folders for what you need most often: bills, family
members, to file, data entry for those things you want to type
into your computer.
Now let's go through some mail. I'l just went to my mail box
and this is what I found.
Ads- if you are going to use them put them on your bulletin
board, if not chuck them into the garbage.
A reminder to vote in the school board election - write
the time and place on your calendar and throw out the reminder.
Blockbuster rewards coupons - in purse next to rewards
card
An invite - if you need to discuss it with someone put
it in their folder, if you are going write a quick RSVP and write
the info in your calendar. If you use an electric calendar like
Outlook, you can type up the directions and everything right in
the note area.
Board of Public Works bill - write in bill folder
An issue I need to call about - write on your to do list
call the company and list the number. Then write @ calls or @
pending next to it, depending on which folder you put it in.
Credit card offers - shred
A new address from a friend - depending on how much info,
either type it into your address book now or slip it into your
data entry folder
A few more ideas that will be helpful to you:
- Don't put anything in your pending folder without writing
it in your calendar or to do list first.
- If it can be done in under two minutes, do it now
- Throw out junk mail and bill inserts immediately
- Instead of a pending folder you can have a tickler file
with a place for every day of the month
- You can have a few hot project folders with your action
files. For instance I have Vacation Bible School, habits ecourse
and self-care seminar folders with my action since these are
the major projects at the moment.
- Put sort mail on your evening routine so it is done before
you go to bed every day.
- You can use the two links below to get less junk mail to
your home
- Sorting mail doesn't have to be so hard. I think we make
it more complicated than it has to be. We just need to look
at the piece of mail, decide what action needs to be taken,
then put it in the appropriate folder.
Resources
How
to Create a Tickler File System
Get
off Mailing Lists
How
to Get Less Junk Mail
Did you sort your mail yet?
52
Tiny Changes Archive
