Peace of Mind Organizing

Letterbox gives you a clutter-free way to keep your cards and letters

30 October 2017

Occasionally I see clients who hang onto all the cards (holiday or otherwise) they ever receive. Over the years that can pose a significant challenge if there isn’t room to store all of them. (And who has that kind of room?)

Personally, I toss the holiday cards I receive, probably a month after Christmas. I get a twinge every time I do it, but I don’t want to take up space in my home with anything but the most significant, precious handwritten items, like letters from my now-deceased grandmother.

I just learned about something that I think is a nice middle ground between these two extremes. Today I was contacted by Letterbox, a new app debuting on November 30 designed specifically to help people hang on to the cards they receive, digitally and clutter-free.

You could take pictures of all your cards with your phone but then what you do with those photos so that you can find and enjoy them later? Letterbox allows you to put photos of your cards (front and inside) all in one place, accessible in the app, and allows you to organize them by friend, occasion and date.

(And, of course, this would be great for letters and postcards as well as greeting cards.)

Here’s how it works:

• From within the app (which at the moment is available for the iPhone only), you take high-resolution pictures of the front and inside of the card. It automatically focuses, snaps and crops the photos for you. (I love that.)

• You designate who the card was from and the occasion.

• Then you can see all your cards in a timeline (which reminds me a bit of Pinterest) and enjoy them with a single touch.

If your friends also have Letterbox, you can see when they cards you’ve sent, so you know they’ve been received. And you can synch addresses so that you know your friends’ addresses are up to date.

Check out the video:

I haven’t tried it yet because the app hasn’t been released. But on November 30, I’ll be downloading it—this year I’ll try putting my holiday cards into Letterbox, rather than the recycling bin.

Letterbox costs $6 per year. If you’re one of the first 10,000 to sign up before November 30, you can get it for $3 per year and you can sign up for up to 10 years at that rate. If you order from my sign-up page, I’ll get a small portion of your payment (no extra cost to you).

Handwritten items are among the very few things in our lives that are irreplaceable. I love that Letterbox is providing an easy and elegant to preserve them without adding clutter to our homes.

Tagged with: cards, ease, holidays

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