Today the challenge is to organize mail and bills. The tips shared on http://delightfulorder.blogspot.com/2013/01/january-challenge-organizing-papers.html are good. When I start into a project, like reorganizing my home, I do it with a rule I learned from a book called Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel. In the preface of her book she states something to the effect of "if you think this book will fix all of your problems take it back right now." As she continues she basically says that when you read a book on tips you need to take what you think will work for you and not stress about trying it all. Some things just won't work for your family.
While I like all the printable ideas that the Delightful Order blog offers, I don't plan on changing everything I do. I did click on the link to mail organizer and printed off the picture because I think it would work on our closet doors. Not to organize mail, because I have a system, (I'll explain in a minute), but for having things ready to go out the door the next day so that they don't have to lay on the ledge between our entry and living room.
My Mail/Bill System
Mail should be handled as little as possible. Sometimes my family brings in the mail, in which case I find it on my kitchen table or counter, other times I bring it in. Regardless, here are my mail steps.
1. Sort it as I'm walking to my office.
- I move the junk mail to the bottom of the pile and as soon as I'm in my office toss it in my paper recycling bin. (which I empty at my children's school when it gets full-they earn $$ for weight in recycling!)
- Bills I immediately put into our Money Matters folder at my desk
- Mail other than bills, but needing to be taken care of goes into my to do basket on my printer
- Magazines go on the magazine shelf in our family room.
Once it's organized I know where to find it when I go to work on bills, or my to do items.
I process bills a couple of times a month. The last day of the previous month or the first day of the next month I process everything I pay online that I have received as well as a few paper bills that are due at this time. Everything once paid and logged on my Money Matters Software gets checked off on my log of all the bills that come in. My log includes those items too that are deducted monthly from our account. I list them on my log to make sure I've entered them into my software monthly. I use an accounts ledger that I've organized by title of the bill down the left side and the month across the top. On this ledger I also have a section to check off each month once the account has been processed. I keep all paid bills papers in my Money Matters file with the authorization code on it, until the next bill arrives then I shred the previous month. At the beginning of the month I also list the next bill pay date on my calendar, usually this is for only the cable bill and our Visa bill which are both due later in the month, and arrive later. Once I've paid everything I can at the beginning of the month I highlight the squares representing the bills not paid (cable/Visa) so that one quick look reminds me what I need to make sure to take care of.
My system could still use some tweaks, so I'm looking forward to reading more about paper organization this month.
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