ORGANIZING
Tips for
Tuesday
As
I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the biggest problem areas in my home as far
as order is concerned are my kitchen table and counter. The biggest culprit – mail. Thanks to my church mailbox, I have mail
landing on my counter seven days a week.
The
easiest way to deal with excess mail is to not get it in the first place. I've found several ways to reduce the amount of mail sent to my house.
1.
Get off the bulk mailing lists. This
takes a while to take effect, but worth the wait. Companies pay to buy mailing lists and don’t
want to waste their money and mail on people who don’t want it. You just need to let them know you’re one of
those people. For the best results, go
to each of these sites:
- At top right of home page,
click on “contact us”
- When asked to select what kind
of user you are, choose “consumer” from the drop down menu.
- When asked to select the
appropriate question, choose “I would like to be removed from your mailing
list” and click on the “next” button.
- Enter the required information,
click “send” and in 5-6 weeks those circulars will stop
- Click on the “Get Started” tab
on the far right and type in the requested information.
- You can set up separate accounts for each person in your household, and list up to five versions of each name. YOU MAY WANT TO KEEP TRACK OF THE NAMES YOUR MAIL IS SENT TO BEFORE DOING THIS SO YOU CATCH ALL THE VARIATIONS.
- Call the toll free number you
find in catalogs and ask to be removed from their mailing list. Even if it’s a number used to place an
order, they’re still able to remove you from their list.
- Return the postage paid
envelope to organizations looking for a donation. There’s no need to get nasty, just
include the contribution slip with a request to be taken off their mailing
list. I usually cross off the
donation information just to make it clear that I’m not contacting them to
make a contribution. Be sure to
keep your contact information clear so they know who to remove.
3.
When making a donation, make it clear that you do not wish to receive any
excess mailings. I keep the following
letter on my computer and send it whenever I am making a one-time donation:
"We would like to thank you for
the service you provide and offer you this donation to further your work. Unfortunately, there are far more worthy
causes looking for funds than we have funds available, so we must look for
those organizations who will be the best stewards of the gifts given to
them. We have been disappointed by those
organizations that accept our donation and then seemingly spend a great portion
of our gift to send numerous mailings and requests for additional funds back to
us. While each mailing contains
information that we’re sure the organization finds necessary, to us it is just
overwhelming.
"We humbly request that you would
not place us on your mailing list. We
will continue to support your ministry as God leads us, but if you choose not
to honor our request our support will be sent to one of the other worthy
causes."
Now
that we’ve begun the process of eliminating unwanted mail, we’ll continue next
week by looking at how to manage the mail that does come into your house.
Lisa
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Beautiful blog Lisa. It was wonderful to get to know you this past weekend and hear your vision for ministry. God always has bigger and better plans than we do so HANG ON!!
Thank you for your amazing hospitality.
Blessings,
Pat