envelope-coatThe other day I rushed home from work and jumped straight on the computer.  My wife walked by my office and said “Take off your coat and stay a while!”

You might wonder what this fascinating story has to do with organizing.  A while back I wrote a post called “Envel-nope”, about why un-shed envelopes have no place in the home.

I won’t repeat the whole post here, but the central point was that envelopes are perfectly designed for delivering mail, but they are terribly designed for managing your papers.

To stay on top of your mail, your envelopes need to be shed when you come home, just as quickly as you shed your coat.  In fact, you can think of your envelopes as coats for you papers.  Once indoors, your envelopes shouldn’t be worn any more than your coat should be.

So take off your envelope and make a file!