THE POWER OF LESS PAPER

Minimal-effort ways to say goodbye to pesky paper pileups

BY NAOMI BARR

MAIL , BILLS , RECEIPTS it’s easy for the small drifts of paper that arrive daily to turn into a tsunami. Managing them is a matter of staying on top of the wave. “We often feel so fried that we don’t take the extra few seconds to ask ourselves, ‘Do I need this? If so, where should it go?’ That delayed decision-making can quickly lead to clutter,” says organizing expert Shira Gill, author of Minimalista. Creating a system to sort through mail and other papers as soon as they come in can save you mountains of mess and stress in the long run. Start with these strategies.

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AFTER YOUR DAILY MAIL DELIVERY

Unbox and break down packages as they arrive (unless you anticipate a return), and put cardboard in your paper recycling bin. Any junk mail that’s recyclable (read on to learn which types are) should be immediately placed with other paper waste. Put mail that requires a response in a basket, box, or hanging organizer for later review. “Most mail can be dealt with just one day a week,” says Pia Thompson, founder of Sweet Digs, a home-organizing service in New York City. Gill agrees: “In my house, we do a quick meeting every Sunday night where we respond to mail—invitations, bills—and divide and conquer it as a family”

Get Crafty With Storage

Use a corkboard or magnetic board to post permission slips and other timesensitive documents. Designate a container for paperwork that needs to go under review, along with mail you have to answer or address weekly. Place the container someplace easily accessible, like on top of your entryway credenza. Find one that blends in with your decor and is deep enough to disguise your pile (such as the Threshold Round Natural Basket, $30; target.com)

TOSS, SAVE, SHRED, SCAN

Throw advertising mailers, political flyyers, unwanted coupons, and envelopes (even those with address windows) into o your recycling right away. Credit card ofers, bills, ATM receipts, sales receipts, account statements—basically, anything that contains info beyond your address that could be candy to identity thieves should be shredded first. (Don’t want to o buy a home shredder? The UPS Store annd FedEx offer bulk shredding services for a fee. Alternatively, you can tear them by hand and mix them into your compoost. And if you have a fireplace or outdoor firepit, old bank statements and bills can make great tinder!) If there are any papers you want to hang on to, consider scanning and saving them as clutter-free digital files on your phone or in your email. The TurboScan app ($5 for Android, $6 for iOOS) scans and sorts documents in seconds.

IF YOU ONLY DO ONE THING Haven’t signed up for paperless billing and automatic payments? Do it! Then go to catalogchoice.org, to get yourself of catalog and junk mail lists, and to optoutprescreen.com, to help free yourself from unsolicited credit card and insurance ofers. These actions can cut down on clutter, and they’re good for the environment: According to the Harvard University Oice for Sustainability, the production and disposal of direct mail consumes more energy than 3 million cars annually.

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