Martha Monday Tip

Today's tip is another thing that I really need to work on...Sort the mail. Martha says, "Take a few minutes to open, read, and sort mail as soon as you bring it inside. Keep a trash bin near your sorting area for junk mail. Drop other mail into one of four in-boxes: personal correspondence, bills, catalogs, and filing." I try and put all my bills in a separate place right away so that they don't get lost among all the other things to sort through so that when the day comes to pay bills, they are all in one place. My dad did a really cool thing with bills...After he opened them and checked when they were due, he would subtract three days and then write that new date on the outside of the envelope. He would then put all the bills in order of when they were due and mail the check by the date on the envelope. It seemed to work pretty good. Catalogs and ads are a whole different story. I try and toss out the ads to places that I never shop right away and the rest get put with the phone books. Catalogs are the same way...I toss them right away if I don't need to buy anything from them or they get filed away and then I go through all of them every couple of months. Hopefully this will help me keep my table and counters cleared in the kitchen. Happy sorting :)