Another holiday that involves greeting cards has come and gone. Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day will soon be here. And, of course, all through the year there are cards for birthdays, anniversaries, births, deaths, graduations, moving, coping, congratulations, and thank you situations.
How do you handle this need for cards?
Buy as you need them. This is a good system if you are short on storage space and are organized enough to get out there early enough to find the perfect card and mail it on time.
Buy as you need them, but also have an eye out for that perfect card for someone special.
Buy cards that appeal to you when you see them – you can never find the perfect one when you really want it.
Buy when you see good ones. Really stock up when there are sales. After holidays are good times to buy for the next year.
Now the difficulty with some of these methods is that you end up with a plethora of cards. And you still might not have that “perfect” card for a special person – so you go out and buy more. Perhaps (gasp!) you don’t even have all of your cards in one place and you know you might have a good one but you just don’t have the time to look for it now – so, off to the store.
However you handle obtaining cards, I’m willing to bet that all of us have some greeting cards in our homes. So, how do you organize them to find what you want when you need it?
First, gather together all of the greeting cards you have.
Sort them – like with like. All birthday cards in one stack, all anniversary cards in another stack, etc.
Throw out any ratty cards or ones you really don’t want to send.
Find a container for your cards and a place to store the container – preferably somewhere near where you are likely to write and address the cards.
Now, place your cards by categories into that container. You might use an accordion file or large envelopes to hold your categories. A lot depends on how many cards you have. You might even have a second container for holiday cards. The rule should be that you have no more cards than will comfortably fit in that container.
The next time you need a card, first shop in your container. If you don’t find one you can use, then go to the store. But, remember; don’t buy any more cards than will fit into your container.
As an extra bonus, I also like to keep special postage stamps in an envelope in the same container as the cards.
Jonda S. Beattie Professional Organizer