Organize Your Mailing and Packaging Supplies

Mailing and packaging supplies can often be a source of home clutter. Although these useful items are a necessity in most homes, they can be challenging to keep organized. In some cases, you might simply want to keep the envelopes, stamps and stationery that you use for personal communication better organized. However, if you run a small business out of your home, the need for organizing mailing and packaging supplies becomes even more challenging and important. If your mail supplies are disorganized and your workspace is a mess, here are a few tips that you can use to help get things under control.

Choosing a Designated Work Area

If you do a lot of packaging or mailing, having a specially designated work area and storage supply area is vital. Although you can technically use the dining room table or the kitchen countertop as a work area, it's not really the best or most efficient way to get the job done. Instead, try to find at least a small space that you can use for these tasks. A small table and bookshelf in a corner of the basement could work, as could a folding table and wall shelf in the garage.

If you do a lot of packaging and mailing, such as would be the case if you were operating a small business from your home, it's usually best to position your work area and supplies close to where you store your products. For example, if you use a spare bedroom as a workroom for your home eBay business, tucking a small table and shelf into the corner of the room can really help streamline your operations and make you more efficient.

Efficient Storage Solutions for Supplies

The storage solution used for your mailing and packaging supplies will be highly dependent on the items you customarily use. For example, if you generally just send letters and the occasional package, keeping a supply of envelopes, stamps and a few collapsed cardboard boxes in the corner of your home office might be all you really need. However, if you frequently use a larger variety of mailing and packaging supplies, you'll need a more efficient and creative storage solution.

Cardboard boxes are a common item used for packaging. If you only use certain sizes of boxes, such as the Priority Mail boxes that are available from the U.S. Postal Service, then you might be able to get by with storing them in a few bins or boxes. However, if you prefer to recycle used cardboard boxes as packaging or if you use a wide variety of boxes, your storage solution will be a bit more challenging. Although using recycled cardboard boxes is inexpensive and good for the environment, they can take up a lot of space. In order to neatly store more boxes in a smaller amount of space, you should collapse and fold the boxes instead of storing them assembled and taped. Before folding the box, measure it in all dimensions. Then mark these dimensions on the box to make it easier to find the right size of box when you need to ship something.

Plastic bins, boxes or shelves can work well as a storage area for smaller packaging supplies, such as tape, mailing labels or your return address stickers. In addition to being able to work more efficiently, you'll also save money by keeping these items well organized, since you'll be less likely to lose or inadvertently damage your supplies.