Inbox at home? Absolutely!

I heard this suggestion back in my 20’s.  At first, I thought, “inboxes are only for work”.  It seemed strange to me to think of an inbox sitting in my house.

• Wouldn’t that make my house too much like work?  
• Wouldn’t this cause my personal life to be too structured and boring? 
• Would it suck the fun out of coming home and leaving work behind?

I decided to give it a try when I heard the suggestion a second time at a time/task management seminar.  I placed it discretely in my kitchen.  At first, I only put my “deal with” mail in it.  I found that this worked well.  When I needed to pay bills or deal with a letter, it was right there.

I started putting my task notes in the inbox.  I would grab them before heading off to work and then deal with them during the day. 

My husband got one also.  It made it very easy to sort stuff and toss his bills, task notes, or letters in his inbox, so he could easily find them. 

Eventually, I grew to love my house inbox much more than my office inbox.  My house inbox often contained fun things - notes about vacation and flyers on events I wanted to attend. I began to clean my inbox daily and always enjoyed seeing what my husband had put it in.

I now have two inboxes.  One I keep for the stuff coming in.  The other I use as a “pending/holding” box to store items that require follow-up.   For instance, I purchased tickets from an event flyer. I put the flyer in my pending/holding inbox till the tickets arrived. When the ticket came in, I just pitch the flyer.   This is a great visual tickler system to ensure the tickets arrive safe and sound.

I realized that a home inbox was just a great way to collect the things I needed to deal with.  Instead of trying to remember where that flyer or bill went, I had it all in one place.  I could deal with the item, rather than deal with trying to find the item.