11) Purchase a basket that is approximately 9” x 12” and at least 6” deep. Keep it by the front door and any mail you receive can be placed right into the basket. Once the basket is full, you will need to sort through and get rid of what you don’t need. This can also be used for school papers. You can either have one basket for the family or one basket for each person. In lieu of baskets, desk bins can also be used. The stackable ones work well as you can purchase enough so that each person has a slot. All papers must be cleaned out either once a week or when you can’t fit any more papers.
12) Buy two different color laundry baskets. One color is for clean clothes and one is for dirty. When clothes come out of the dryer, they go directly into the clean baskets and each person in the house is responsible for taking their clean clothes to their rooms and putting them away. Anything that needs to be washed will go into the other color basket. This eliminates washing clothes over because clean clothes ended up in the wash again.
13) Use online bill paying. Most banks now offer online bill paying. You can set up your bills, including account numbers and go on to pay each time or set up automatic payments. The money you spend for the service may is well worth it to avoid the late charges when you forget to pay a bill.
14) Create a keepsake binder for each child. When they bring home tests they are proud of, art projects or any other papers they want to keep use a three hole punch and place the paper in a binder. You can make one for yourself and keep important papers as well, such as tax returns. This way you won’t accidentally throw away something important.
15) Sort through your mail each day. Keep a trash basket by the front door so that you can immediately throw away junk mail without ever placing it on a table or counter. Keep a shelf or basket nearby to place items that you will need to save, such as bills.
