31 Day Challenge: Day 27

Paper clutter can be a huge problems for ADDers. Most of us probably get an average of 5 pieces of mail, 6 days a week. A lot of it is just junk mail, but there are important items in there as well.

Ideally, you should only handle each piece of mail once: make a decision and follow through.

Obvious junk goes in the garbage or recycling.

An invitation should be noted on your calendar if you plan to attend or noted in your planner as a call to make or an RSVP t return.

Bills should be noted by due date.

That’s an ideal world.

The real world is a little bit different.

Mail often gets left on the kitchen counter or table and may sit there for days before you decide to look through it.

You might have a basket or other storage spot to hold incoming mail, but again, how long does it stay there before you deal with it?

And how often have you missed paying a bill on time because it sat in the mail pile too long?

That means late fees, maybe even shut off fees.

Don’t waste your money like that.

Here is how I put order to my bill paying process:

• As soon as I get a bill in the mail, it gets opened and then placed on my planner at my desk
• The next time I’m at my desk – which is every day – I look at the bill and note the amount due and the payee on my month view calendar in my planner. I color code it green.
• The bill itself gets recycled
• Each week during my Sunday night plan I look to see what bills are due that week and when
• Because it’s such a quick thing for me to do, I pay them as they are due on my computer. I do not follow a weekly bill paying session where I pay everything due that week. If a certain bill is due on Tuesday and another on Friday, they each get paid that day or the evening before.
• I use Evernote to clip my confirmation page and save it to my bill file in Evernote.

That’s it.

It’s quick and easy and it really does save us money. Before, I was bad about remembering to pay bills on time and even found a bill I forgot to mail in my purse more than once.

I was also bad about opening our mail and checking it. I’ve had our insurance company call me more than once to ask why I hadn’t cashed their check. That was because I didn’t open it and didn’t know!

If you have trouble keeping your bill paying on track, give my system a try.