31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 11

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 10's post.

I'm slowly making my way through household stuff that's easy to minimize working towards things that are a bit more difficult to handle. Sorting spices or plastic containers requires little effort and it's really easy to dump out a junk drawer and toss/re-home/keep those types of treasures. Other things, however, aren't so easy.

What do you do with your mail? Do you bring it in the house and immediately file it appropriately? Do you toss it on a counter and then paw through it later? Do you even HAVE a designated procedure for dealing with mail?

I found this infographic today on Pinterest and it spurred me on to talk about mail (and other paperwork, like kids' stuff.)

Source: justorganizeyourstuff.com via Liz on Pinterest

Our current system for mail is:

1. Get mail from mailbox. Usually Bryce does this. 4-year-olds LOVE getting the mail!
2. Plop it on the kitchen counter.
3. Leave it there.
4. Pile some more stuff on top of the mail like receipts, field trip permission slips, coupons, etc.
5. repeat steps 1-4

6. Become exasperated at the growing pile of mail and papers!

Want to see our mail "zone?"

Consider yourself warned!

Our kitchen is open to our dining room, as you can see in the photo. If you look on the kitchen counter past the crock pot, you see the mail "zone." Want a closer look?

Here it is. It's actually a pretty big zone. I had intended the pie plate to hold that day's mail and the smaller pie plate to hold the hubby's odds & ends, but it has turned into long term storage. The large basket holds all of the cards & letters we received after Brad's parent's death and the lists of thank-you's remaining to be sent. And tissues. We are a sneeze-y people, so we need tissues out on the counter.

Let's look closer at the pie plate o'mail and you can see that it is clearly not just today's mail. It's practically permanent storage for stuff!

Steps to dealing with your pile of mail include:

1. Find all of your current mail and put it in one location.
2. Using the handy flow chart above, sort it into "yours" "mine" "bills" "school" or whatever categories you choose.
3. Shred the trash.
3. PUT IT AWAY the remaining mail.
4. Admire your empty mail zone!
5.Promise yourself that tomorrow's mail will be sorted and not left sitting in a pile!


What do I have now? An empty pie plate and a small pie plate that is full of Brad's "treasures." As they are his, he can deal with them. (with any type of purging or organizing, I can't stress enough how important it is to let the OWNER of the stuff deal with the stuff. It'll save your marriage if you leave your spouse's things to your spouse to throw away.)

Something I've been trying for the past several months is magnets on the fridge for the boys' school papers. I've used different systems before like folders in a drawer, binders on a shelf, piles on the counter--they all worked for awhile, but failed in the end.

Each boy has a magnetic clip to hold his current school papers (like permission slips, order forms, book orders, etc).  While I prefer an empty fridge front, I'm really not minding this too much. It keeps things in order, it's not in the way AND--it's not lost in a pile!!!

Day 1 email

Day 2 magazines

Day 3 kitchen tools 

Day 4 junk drawer

Day 5 bathroom counter

Day 6 first aid & medicines

Day 7 kitchen sink

Day 8 plastic containers

Day 10 spices