How to Organize Stationery and Letters (Without Losing the Magic)

5 simple ways to store what you send ... and what you keep.

Dear Reader,

If letters are memory, then organizing them is memory management.

Which might explain why, in addition to being a writer, author, and lifelong letter writer, I’m also a professional organizer.

To me, the connection feels obvious. Paper. Envelopes. Stamps. Pens. Small items in need of structure or, as I prefer to call it, a home.

Last week I received an email from Grace, co-owner (with her sister Martie) of Tiny and Snail, a stationery shop whose motto is “There’s magic in the mail.” (Oh, how I agree.) Not only do they hand design beautiful cards, but their story is also beautiful too. Grace asked how I organize my own stationery and the letters I receive.

What perfect timing.

With March 9 being National Organize Your Home Office Day, I’ve been thinking about paper. Not bills. Not tax documents. The good paper. The stationery we buy because it’s beautiful. The letters we keep because their words once held us together or simply made our hearts sing.

So here’s how I organize mine.

I keep my stationery in two sturdy boxes. (HomeGoods, more than a decade ago, still going strong.) Not crammed in a drawer. Not bent at the corners. Inside, I separate cards into simple categories: thanks, birthday, blank, friendship, etc.

When I open those boxes, I’m reminded I already have what I need to reach out. No rummaging. No decision fatigue. Just possibility.

The letters I receive live in labeled folders. If someone has written more than twenty letters, they get their own folder. Others are grouped by chapter: camp friends, high school, college, family. Each folder becomes a time capsule.

When I sit down to write and remember something from an old letter, I can find it in minutes. That’s the organizer in me. Rather than copy my exact system, here are the principles behind it:

5 Ways to Organize Your Stationery & Letters

1. Give everything a dedicated home.
Boxes, containers, folders—the item matters less than the containment. If it floats, it becomes clutter. If it belongs somewhere, it becomes usable.

2. Separate by purpose.
Stationery: choose categories that make sense to you and label them.
Letters received: group them by person, decade, or emotional chapter. However you want to remember your life.

3. Keep it accessible.
If your stationery is buried, you won’t use it. If your letters are impossible to find you won’t revisit them. Store it so that someday (when you need proof of who you were) you can find it.

4. Edit with kindness for your future self.
Not every card needs to be saved forever. Keep what still feels alive. (If it only says, “Season’s Greetings,” feel free to say, “Buh-bye!”)

5. Group the extras
Stamps, favorite writing pens and even embellishments like stickers should live together in their own box, Ziploc bag or Tupperware. The goal is to make the entire letter-writing process seamless.

On this National Organize Your Home Office Day, maybe the most meaningful thing to organize isn’t your desk drawer. It’s your history. The way we store our letters (and our blank pages waiting for our words) reveals what we believe is worth remembering. And what we’re ready to send next.

With love (and two very tidy boxes),

P.S. How do you store your stationery or letters? Send pictures, I genuinely love seeing people’s systems!

The One & Only by Kirsty MacColl

Felice Cohen is an award-winning author, best known for squeezing big ideas into small spaces—like her 90-square-foot NYC apartment (yes, really). Her books include Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love, 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet, and What Papa Told Me, with praise from legends like Elie Wiesel and Rita Mae Brown. Her viral YouTube tour has racked up over 25 million views—mostly from people wondering where she kept her shoes. More at felicecohen.com.