The only thing that I hate more than unpacking after vacation – is processing the a pile of mail that could probably compete with Mount Everest.
Usually, I pick through it and try to find the urgent stuff. The downside of this method is the rest of the mail sits for a looooooong time before I visit it again. And inevitably, there will be some odd bill in that neglected stack that will have been due the day before I get to it.
So today, in keeping with the GTD (getting things done) philosophy – I decided to process the entire pile in one sitting – starting with the piece on top and working my way down to the very last envelope.
Amazingly it took me under one hour - and I was left with a very full trash can (if the world is going green – someone forgot to tell the folks that snail mail me junk daily), and a thankfully small pile of bills to pay. Everything else was filed, shredded, scanned, or tossed.
And I am thrilled to have regained some time in an otherwise jam packed day.
How do you deal with overwhelming piles of paperwork?
photo by zevotron
