Goodbye, 2012

2012 was definitely a great year for mail. I made 7 new pen pals but also lost quite a few. I always wonder what makes someone quit writing and I constantly worry that maybe one letter didn't reach them and they are just waiting for my reply. Or maybe I didn't receive one of the letters they sent me! Well, I am thankful for all of the wonderful mail friends that have stuck around and the new friends that I have made. My 2013 mail resolution is to keep up on organizing mail (and, of course, replying). How terrible is it that I have only sent out Christmas cards this month? Not one letter went out! December was an incredibly busy month for myself but things are settling down now.

One of the many things I do to keep track of mail is doing a basic Google Calendar, which satisfies me visually. It is neat to scroll through the months and see all of the different colors! June was probably my busiest mail month, sending & receiving. For the calendar, the colors are used to distinguish the different types of mail I receive, Postcrossing, pen pals, Sendsomething, etc.

I do a lot of other things to keep track of everything that is sent and received. In addition to the Google Calendar, my mail is tracked in a paper daily planner, in spreadsheets and also by photographing it! I basically write the same information in 3 or 4 different places. Do you do anything crazy/silly/normal to track your mail? Are you a free spirit who doesn't need to track your mail?

I mentioned maps! Maps are probably my most favorite thing. I love to use them when traveling, in collages and hang them up on the wall. Google is definitely my favorite tool to track mail visually. It is so cool to see all the places you're mail has been or where it came from all nice and neat on a map. These 2 maps aren't really an accurate representation of incoming/outgoing mail as I only used one pin for each location, no matter how much mail I received from a certain place. I wanted to keep it as neat as possible. I had a different map in the beginning of the year that tracked every single piece of mail but it just looks terrible and isn't that functional, in my opinion.