Some people require a sherpa to climb the mountain of junk mail they receive in a year.

According to the Native Forest Network, the average person will receive almost 560 pieces of junk mail this year. That amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail produced each year.

The most important thing to remember when dealing with junk mail is that it is better to file, rather than pile, according to Kim Cosentino, owner of the Westmont-based organizing company, The De-Clutter Box Inc.

“I also tell people to think vertical, instead of horizontal,” Cosentino said. “Half of my clients have such a problem with flat surface disease and they get stressed out over handling all of their paperwork.”

Cosentino added that people tend to pile up magazines and catalogs despite the fact that the same information found in them is now available online.

“If people are keeping a magazine around because they want a recipe or a gardening tip, they can Google that same information and they can recycle that magazine,” she said.

Getting rid of junk mail is virtually impossible, and even when you do, it finds its way back to your doorstep, according to Jackie Tiani, a nationally recognized productivity expert, trainer, business coach and owner of www.organizingsystems.com.

She has helped many of her clients to significantly reduce the amount of junk mail they receive.

“You shouldn’t expect junk mail to just disappear, it may take a while and you will have to continue the process,” Tiani said.

She said she usually tells her clients that it will probably take between four or five months before the junk mail drops off, once you begin the process to have your name removed from mailing lists.

“A lot of those mailings are sent months in advance, so it may take a while to stop receiving them,” Tiani explained. “If after four or five months mail starts coming again from the same business, then I would follow up.”

Tiani gives these tips to help eliminate the junk that ends up in the mailbox.

• Do not sign up for any contests or sweepstakes.

• When placing orders via the telephone, ask that companies to not sell your name to another company.

• Avoid placing your address on surveys and product warranty cards. It is generally not necessary to send in warranty cards or register a warranty for the warranty to be valid, regardless of what the card may imply.

• Keep a recycling bin by your mailbox or wherever you sort mail.

• Never sit down when you sort through your mail. You will have a tendency to look through every piece of mail and you will end up keeping a lot of the junk mail that you don’t need.

Get taken off these lists

• ADVO, Inc. – You can remove your name and address from these mailings by:
Phone Call ADVO’s Consumer Assistance line at (888) 241-6760
Online Fill out and submit the form at ADVO’s Web site: www.advo.com/consumersupport.html
Mail Send a letter to: ADVO, Inc., Customer Assistance, P.O. Box 249, Windsor, CT 06095

• PennySaver – You can remove your name and address from these mailings by:
Phone Call (800) 422-4116
Mail Send a letter to: Circulation, C/O Pennysaver, 2830 Orbiter St., Brea, CA 92821

• Val-Pak Savings Coupons – Val-Pak maintains regional lists, not a central one
Mail Send your request to the address printed on the envelope you receive
Online If you receive the blue envelope, you also can remove your address from their Web site at www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm

For people who are too busy to reduce junk mail themselves, there are several services which offer to do it for you, for a charge.

Web sites such as greendimes.com and 41pounds.org will remove your name and others in your household from direct mail lists, unsolicited credit card offers, as well as the catalogs from which you selectively choose to unsubscribe.

Tiani added she has learned to reduce the stress in her life by removing annoyances.
She said, “Junk mail is one of my annoyances, and I have reduced a lot more of my stress now that I don’t have to deal with as much of it.”