How To Organize Greeting Cards – Day 1
Usually there are the extremes – either you are running to the store last minute to pick up a card, or you go to your stash and spend 15 minutes deciding which card to send. Both of them take about the same amount of time; time that you could probably be spending elsewhere! Sending a card should not be a burden, but a joy to give.
Believe it or not, greeting cards can be one of those items that can easily be overlooked when it comes to decluttering, organizing, and living with less. Think about these questions:
- Why do you send someone a card? Because it’s the “Hallmark” thing to do?
- Do you have greeting cards, boxed cards, and Christmas cards, all over the place?
- Do you have cards that you know you are never going to use?
Keeping your greeting cards organized and decluttered, will help you not only in the decision making process but also help you save space for the cards you actually like. Decluttering your greeting cards will be worth ever minute!
1. Find all of your cards that you have in the house.
2. Decide:
- Do you like the card?
- Would you ever send it to someone? Who? (Put their name on it!)
- Does it have a matching envelope (or do you have an envelope you could use?)
- Do you boxes of cards that you will not use every card in?
3. Whatever you will not use, recycle them.
4. Decluttering is done, but now it’s time to organize them! Find an old box (a photo box works well). I used an old photo box and dividers that I had from an old card holder. You can also make dividers using cardstock. By having those dividers, you know what types of cards you are am low on and what cards you have too many of. I also keep spare envelopes in the back, just in case I mess up writing the address (it’s been known to happen).
5. Write down all of the birthdays and anniversaries you need cards for.
6. Make or buy cards for ALL of them.
6. Make or buy cards for ALL of them.
7. For each card, put a little tab on it with the person’s name.
8. Now you are SET for the WHOLE YEAR! Those panic moments will never happen AND you have cleaned out the cards you will NEVER use!
Isn’t it nice to just grab the box, grab the card, and send it, instead of going through all of your cards, wondering which one to send? Obviously there are occasions you can’t necessarily plan for, like thank yous, sympathy cards, etc. Just keep those “areas” well-stocked.
Now you can ENJOY sending a card to someone, instead of it being a chore!
