Retailers love to send you catalogs. They’ll bury you in them, especially in the fall and early winter.

Sometimes you’ll see something you need. Sometimes you’ll see a great gift for someone else.

Most catalogs aren’t worth keeping, even if the company is good. Harry & David is a great company that I do business with, but I never use their catalogs.

I weed out most of my junk mail at the post office. Assuming that a catalog makes it into the house, I put it in a pile to read in my living room. Usually I read it casually, often in the bathroom. If it makes the second cut, I draw a diagonal line across the cover with a Sharpie to show I’ve read it. I’ll take the second cut to my sanctum.

Each catalog company that makes the cut gets a Contacts entry something like this:

Now I’ve not bought anything from this company yet, although I have my eye on a nice Tree of Life sweatshirt. While I’ve not put in their phone number, I have changed a phone label to “file” and put in “catalog-g02”. In my catalog file drawer, I put the latest catalog from GaelSong in folder g02. The computers know where it is, but my iPads and iPods do not. Under iOS 8, iOS devices don’t show phone fields that do not have a valid phone number.

I’ve set up a smart group that looks for “catalog-“ in the phone fields.

And since Apple doesn’t do tags right, I’ve entered my own in the notes. Once I buy at least three things from this company, I will add “supplier” to tags.

This is how I keep catalogs under control.

Tags: Apple + catalogs + Harry & David + Sharpie + GaelSong