Three thoughts on envelopes

Me, I am some kind of a lucky person, in that I keep getting showered with riches of envelopes. People . . . . well, actually, companies  . . . send me all sorts of mail with return envelopes inside, even though I mostly pay my bill online. Not one to let these riches go to waste, I offer up three thoughts on envelope use.

Thought 1.
"Back of the envelope calculations" are famous for a reason.  Envelopes are really perfect for making lists: they are not too wide, so they force me into the column format, and they don't distract me with vast swaths of blank space or make you feel like a failure for not filling that space.  I use envelopes to keep track of attendance at office hours (my students get credit for visiting me early in the semester).  Apparently, sometimes I use them to jot down ideas for blog posts, too.

Thought 2.
Return envelopes are lovely for sorting smaller pieces of paper.  Historically, people have used them for budgeting; me, I use them to store receipts by month (for example, February 2021).   I don't need to go back and find receipts often --- in fact I can only think of, like, three times in the past three years when I needed to --- but those few times I've needed to find a receipt, it's been super easy to find them.

Thought 3.
Envelopes have this over phones or computers: they don't distract me by pinging me with texts or pointing me towards websites. I never look up from writing something down on an envelope and say to myself,  "Wait! where did that last hour go???"   Better yet, when I put an envelope down someplace, unlike emails or texts, they don't move around to make way for the next incoming envelope; so it's easy to go back and find them later.