Do you open your post and put the letter back in the envelope? Or perhaps you open the envelope, glance at what’s inside, and put the whole lot down on the side? It sounds like a small thing, but it makes a surprisingly big difference to your clutter.
Here’s why the envelope needs to go straight in the recycling the moment you open it.
First, the practical reason. When you come back to a pile of post later — and we all do — you have to open everything again to find what you are looking for. Is the council tax bill in this one? Or is it the one underneath? You end up rifling through the same pile twice, which rather defeats the purpose of dealing with it at all.
Second, the visual reason. A pile of opened envelopes with letters stuffed back inside looks twice as big as it actually is. Envelopes are bulky. Remove them and suddenly the pile is much more manageable — both to look at and to work through. There is a real psychological benefit to this. A smaller-looking pile is a less daunting pile, and a less daunting pile is one you are more likely to actually tackle.
The same applies to the envelopes that contain nothing useful — the outer packaging from a catalogue, the envelope that just contained a flyer, anything that arrived unsolicited. Those can go straight in the recycling without a second thought.
The habit to build is simple: open the post over the recycling bin. Envelope goes in immediately, contents go into your ’to deal with’ tray or folder. It takes no extra time at all, and it means that what you are left with is purely the things that need your attention, neatly stacked and easy to sort through.
It sounds almost too simple to mention, but we have seen first-hand how much difference small habits like this make — particularly when life gets busy, or when post starts to feel like something to be avoided rather than dealt with.
Small changes to daily habits are often the most powerful ones.
You can have a look at our YouTube video about filing which mentions tossing envelopes straight away. If you haven’t seen it have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC8EgHBOGg4&t=4s