How To Declutter & Get Rid Of Junk Mail

Today's mission is to declutter and get rid of junk mail that you've got piled up in your home.

This mission is designed to be worked on while doing the Organize Mail Challenge here on the site, which is part of the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge.

How To Declutter Your Junk Mail Piles

This is a pretty straight forward assignment. By definition junk mail is stuff you don't need to keep, and therefore should not stay in your home because it is just clutter, plain and simple.

Junk mail can encompass credit card offers, advertisements and deals, and just about any other type of unsolicited mail that tries to sell you something you didn't really ask for.

Depending on how long you've let this junk mail pile up in your home it may not be a mission you can complete in 15 minutes. That's OK. What you do in those situations is work on it 15 minutes at a time.

You can get some general guidelines and suggested steps for how to declutter paper piles, which would include things like junk mail, in the linked article.

Most of this junk mail should be shredded, if it contains personally identifiable information. This is especially true for things like credit card offers. So as you gather this paper clutter you can place all the papers that need to be shredded in your shredding pile.

If you start to get so much stuff to be shredded that it seems overwhelming I would encourage you to invest a small amount of money and take everything to a commercial paper shredding company, such as one of the companies that will shred your papers right in front of you. Yes, it costs a bit, but you don't have to feed lots of envelopes, including some that contain those thick fake credit cards as part of the offers, into your personal shredder for hours at a time.

How To Avoid Junk Mail Clutter In The Future

Once you've spent all the time to get rid of the accumulated junk mail I know you certainly won't want to repeat the process again in the future.

So you'll need to change your habits and take some proactive steps to keep it from piling up again.

The first thing you should do is take the steps I've outlined in my article about how to stop junk mail, which includes instructions for stopping companies from even sending you the stuff.

While taking those steps will stop a lot of the junk, unfortunately it may not stop it all. Therefore, in addition, you'll also need to change your habits so that you deal with the junk mail as it comes in the door so it doesn't re-accumulate.

I've outlined the simple steps you should take daily with all of the incoming mail, and other papers, that come into your home daily in this article, discussing what I suggest you adopt as your daily paperwork and mail routine. For junk mail, on a daily basis, as you go through your mail, I suggest you get in the habit of either throwing these items directly in the recycling bin, putting them in your shredding pile, or keeping your shredder ready and handy and going ahead and shredding any junk mail you receive right then.

If you both tell companies not to send you more junk mail, and then deal with the few pieces you receive of junk each day, as it comes into your home, then you will not re-accumulate all of it again in the future!

So, this is a pretty simple mission, I know, but it is a very important one for removing paper clutter, in all its forms, from your home.

To get you inspired below I've shared some photos from readers who've done this mission to let you see the big impact removing this clutter from your home can have.

Top photo courtesy of Charles Williams and second photo in mission collage courtesy of hawken king

Getting Rid Of Junk Mail Will Make A Huge Difference In Your Home

Junk mail takes up a lot of room in your home, covering flat surfaces, floors, and making huge piles. When you get rid of it like these readers have you'll have so much more room for other things, or to enjoy the nice open space.

The pictures above were sent in by a reader, Jennifer. She said of the before picture, "My filing system before."

Then, she actually tackled all that paper clutter, and sent in this after photo later. Of the second photo she said, "This was a huge problem for me. As of Jan. 1 I finally have this under control. I sorted everything into keep, shred, recycle. Then actually shredded and recycled everything. Then I sorted all the keep stuff into binders. Each family member has his or her own folder for important papers. I got rid of everything I don't truly need. Mail is sorted immediately. I keep a basket for stuff to be shredded at Hubby's office. Bills go to a folder to be paid. As soon as they are paid they move to the paid folder. When I get the next month's batch and the checks have cleared I shred the old ones. Here are the before and after pics. I have since added another binder for birth certificates, etc."



After you've done this mission you'll have a huge pile for shredding, and another huge pile for recycling, just like a reader, Sally, had. She sent in this photo to show how she completed this mission.

Are You Ready To Declutter Your Home?

I hope seeing these pictures has inspired you to get rid of your junk mail clutter and other paper clutter.

When you begin to declutter the feeling you get is contagious, so if you're loving the results you're getting I would encourage you to keep going.

I've got a whole series of 15 minute decluttering missions (eventually 365 of them!) that you can do.

Just pick and choose the ones you want to do, that will make a big impact in your home. But if you want someone else to tell you the order you can also grab the 15 minute daily decluttering mission calendars and follow along as we all get our homes clutter free together!

Related Pages You May Enjoy

Getting Clutter Free 15 Minutes At A Time Hall Of Fame

Getting Rid Of Paper Clutter Hall Of Fame

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