The $5 Rule – At Rates This High, Can You Afford to be a MessMonster?

We’re all guilty of leaving papers lying around. You’re pressed for time, you don’t quite have the perfect place to stow them, so you place them in a pile, to be dealt with later.

Hopefully, you do deal with them later but, if you are like many people you move these papers several times over the course of time.

Here is a self reinforcing method to clear your clutter, prevent paper buildup, and stop the paper parade. It is called the $5 Rule and here is how it works.

Each time you move a piece of paper to a new location affix a $5 bill to it.

Here’s an example:
Let’s say you receive a piece of mail that you intend to “read” later so you set it on the counter. Later that evening, you move the paper to the living room to make room on the counter for meal preparation. The paper sits unread in the living room for the next several days then is whisked away to a drawer because visitors are arriving.

Your visitors arrive and subsequently leave.

The paper, meanwhile, is now a resident of the drawer, stowed away with other drawerly items such as random keys, paperclips, pens, and tape. Weeks later you dive into the drawer to retrieve a paperclip and rediscover the paper that you had intended to read from weeks before. You place the paper back in the living room with the refreshed intention of reading it. Either of two scenarios play out at this point.

Scenario 1 - you actually read it then recycle it, shred it or otherwise properly dispose of it.
Scenario 2 - you continue the paper parade, adding clutter and stress to your environment.

Let’s see how much Scenario 1 would have cost you if you affixed $5 to the paper each time you moved it.
Paper placed on counter (the first one is free)
Paper moved from counter to living room +$5
Paper moved from living room to drawer +$5
Paper from drawer back to living room +$5

If you read the paper at this point your messiness has needlessly cost you $15.

Scenario 2 – if you continued the paper parade, you may be into your paper $100’s of dollars.

This is crazy - at these rates you can’t afford to be a MessMonster. Whether your parade involves papers, shoes, clothing, or anything else competing for space in your environment, you can get this under control with this simple $5 rule.

If attaching a Lincoln to your paper is a bit of a stretch, then affix a mini Post-it note and mark $5 on it each time you move the item. You will reach the same conclusion either way.

You cannot afford to be a MessMonster!

You may also want to read a related post on this blog - Sift Your Mail