The Letter Tracker

In honor of the New Year, I've started a new way to track mail. I wanted something simple, colorful and handmade. Why keep track? For me it's because sometimes I forget (especially sent mail).  Plus, I find this motivates me to send more mail (who doesn't like that?!).

Meet my 2014 Correspondence Log. I expect to fill more than this page, so we'll see how the year goes.

 

Other methods I've tried in the past include:
 
Day Planner
In 2013 I found this Polestar Business Calendar because it had a column for Correspondence. It was easy to keep the planner on the current week and write down what I sent out, but I didn't track what came in and I didn't use the planner for anything else, which made it kind of a waste.

 

Index Cards
I had one for each correspondent and I would write who wrote what, when, what did I reply back. This was too much time and not convenient. Once you got behind it was hard to catch up.

Spreadsheets
Using an excel spreadsheet felt too mechanical and businesslike. Opening the program wasn't hard, but it was never convenient. I would so much rather write stuff down than track it in an impersonal program.

Some people keep track of their incoming/outgoing mail by documenting each piece in their blog. That is way too intensive for me, but I must admit I like to look at them.

The Missive Maven keeps a link to her blog post on how she tracks her mail: "How I Keep Track of My Mail". 

How about you? Do you track your correspondence? If so, how?