How to organize your bills and other papers
Do you feel like you’re almost drowned by various bills and notices? Here are some tips for you to organize your bills, letters, and other notices as well.
- When you are removing your mail from the mailbox, first look quickly through the mail and from your scan you can identify the items that you do not need to see or you did not ask for, such as bulk mail or advertising brochures. Throw these things out immediately.
- If you keep catalogs, you will soon lose that valuable storage space. That is, you should keep only the pages containing the prospective items that you want. Save also the order form as well as the catalog’s back cover. The rest, trash it.
- When you receive your bills, throw away the outer envelope as well as other junk inside the envelope, saving only the actual bill that you need and the envelope for payment. Place all your bills in an envelope like a manila envelope and file using a punch-up file. Upon placing the bills in your manila envelope, you have to write yourself a little note to remind you that you have to pay this or that certain bill. Place that small note in the “Payday†folder or in some other appropriate folder. Ensure that you allow for some mailing time.
Punch-up files are good in storing information that is time sensitive, such as bills, airline tickets, birthday cards, and mail that has invitations.
- Materials or files that you usually need or access should be placed in folders that are clearly labeled. If this works for you, you can categorize your files or bills based on the month you received them (12 folders for 12 months) or if you get larger files, you can divide the folders per week.
- If you are going on an air travel three months from now and have bought airline tickets early, place them in the folder of the appropriate month.
- At every month’s end, you have to remove everything out of the folder for next month. File all items in your appropriate folder.
- Check the punch-up file every morning. This can be positioned atop a drawer. But if you want to see the punch-up file in closer view so that you won’t forget it, put the punch-up file near your counter or desk.
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