Managing mail
Make your clutter less insane
The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.
Your big table is going to be cluttered up with all sorts of projects, papers, books, and paraphernalia all day, every day, because you have kids and a nice big surface spread with stuff is how life is lived.
Just before a meal you will blow the whistle/ring the bell/raise a meaningful eyebrow and it will all get cleared off — not to the kitchen counters (read that link!)!
The real point here is — and I cannot stress this enough — your mail must never, ever touch the table.
Take some time to get a system for the mail. It is so worth it. No one needs mail clutter in amongst their daily living clutter.
Whoever picks the mail up (off the floor, from the mailbox, at the post office as we do) or brings home a flyer, has to sort it at that moment. If it’s a small kid, he can put it on a little table or shelf next to the door, but a large kid gets good reading skills carrying out this task. (The next-to-the-door clutter situation will resolve when you do this, once a week at least.)
Papers should not get any further into the house without being sorted.
Recycling goes directly into the recycling.
Each person’s mail goes into a dedicated bin/little wire shelf/wicker basket near the door, hopefully one that’s rather open to view, not a kind of black hole. This is the part you need to think through. Once unsorted mail gets deep into the house, the battle is lost.
The next time you touch it will be to RSVP, pay the bill, fill the form, renew the subscription, read the magazine.
There will always be things on your kitchen or dining table.
Just don’t let it be outside papers and mail.
As with everything here at the SFH, the best thing is for you to take my ideas, coming from my experience of 45 years of marriage and raising seven children, and apply them to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!
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For the longer version:
My book on how to live with the Liturgical Year: The Little Oratory