Sorting Mail

In an effort to prove to myself exactly how little time it takes to sort mail, I let my mail pile up to this.

 Now, keep in mind that this is was done purely for investigative purposes.  *Cough*

I believe that this pile accumulated over two weeks.  Amongst this pile of paper is multiple catalogs, magazines, bills, EOBs from insurance, reminders from the vet that my cat needs her shots, junk mail, and other miscellaneous items that need to be filed or otherwise dealt with.

The first thing I do is start opening the mail.  As I figure out what it is, I put it in the appropriate file or pile.  For example, the first item I opened was a credit card statement.  I filed the bill itself in my mesh file organizer under "Bills to Pay" and tossed the rest of the envelope and inserts into the trash.

Banking papers that come in go under "Banking-Holding."  These would be statements that I need to balance...we ALL know how good I am about that!

The "Holding" category in the mesh file organizer is for anything else that needs to be address soon, but I'm not quite ready to file into archival filing.  Usually, items only stay here for a couple weeks.

If I come across a magazine or catalog, it goes in the hanging file box under the appropriate tab.  Same thing for sale papers and coupons that come in the mail.  (I'm trying to make a habit of going through the coupon file once a week and sorting the coupons in my coupon binder.  AKA:  Penny)

It seemed to take forever to open and file all those pieces of paper, but it only took:

And my trash pile looked like this:

The pink paper pile to the left is the shred pile.

Now, in less than ten minutes, I filed and handled over two weeks of mail.  Why, oh why, do I procrastinate so much?