Paper Doll
Organize Your Way Out of the Winter Doldrums
Sigh. the musical Annie may be right that “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow,” but the sun never came out yesterday.
Granted, it was a rainy day, but in addition to the dark, dreariness of the day, and the too-swift passing of a December Sunday, the sun went down without my noticing because it really never seemed to come up. As I may have alluded to in Organize Your Sleep When the Clocks Change and Beyond, I’m not much of a fan of Standard Time. I like lots of sunshine, and particularly want long, light evenings to run errands and move about in the world.
We’re in a darker, gloomier time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. That, combined with the wonkiness of the end of the year, makes this a weird time. Some folks are delighting in preparing for the holidays, getting ready to entertain and celebrate, but over and over, I’m hearing from friends and clients alike that they aren’t quite “feeling it,” or at least not yet.
A few people have asked, having jokingly, if there are ways to organize yourself out of feeling out of sorts at the end of the year. I think there are.
This is the final “normal” week of the year. Next week is Christmas and the start of Hanukkah, and the week after, is New Year’s. While many folks are (or will be) with family and celebrating, there are many who are feeling a walking-through-molasses sluggishness at this time of year. Half their co-workers are out of the office, and while some clients are expecting attention, there’s a widespread, tacit understanding that nobody is starting anything new for the next 2 1/2 weeks.
So, if you’re in your annual happy place, please feel free to skip this week’s post. But if you’re grumbling about the dark and the cold, about another year over and about the “meh” of it all, I have some suggestions.
COPING WITH THE “BASEMENT WEEKS” OF THE YEAR
These weeks aren’t just the bottom of the year. They can feel dark, cold, even soggy. There’s a hurry-up feeling just before the holidays and, for most, a drop-off in delight between the holidays and again at the start of the year.
But winter really can be the most wonderful time of the year if you have the right mindset, according Kari Leibowitz, PhD., a Stanford-trained psychologist. She’s written a book on how to improve mental health by changing how you think about the winter months.
Leibowitz moved to Tromsø, Norway, above the Arctic Circle, to live for a year. For two entire months, the sun doesn’t rise in Tromsø! You’d think everyone there would be crabby and stabby during that time, but she found that the community approached the season with a chipper mentality. She similarly explored places on earth with “some of the coldest, darkest, longest and most intense winters, and discovered the power of “wintertime mindset”— viewing the season as full of opportunity and wonder.”
To help those of us (who can at least feel grateful that we’re not above the Arctic Circle) starting to struggle with finding inspiration this time of year, Leibowitz wrote How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days.
Liebowitz says that changing our mindsets about winter is key. Apparently, we tend to psych ourselves out, adopting a mindset that assumes that winter will be grim, so it feels that way. I get it. As a professional organizer, I’ve seen how often people expect that organizing will be boring and that they’ll be grumpy, so when they do it on their own, it is. They’re surprised when a professional organizer comes in and treats the experience as hopeful and (dare I say it?) entertaining?
As an organizer, I approach working with a new client, or even a new session, by focusing on the possibilities of finding delight. I see myself, in partnership with a client, as an explorer, a detective, an anthropologist, and more. Because I expect fun, I will (generally) find it (and get to share it with the client).
Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, and interpret, new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. If you expect winter to be misery-inducing, you’ll find signs of it everywhere.
Easier said that done? Maybe not. Instead of seeing winter as two potentially fun (but possibly disappointing) weeks followed by months of darkness, we can look for ways to see winter, as a whole, as fun.
Create a Winter Wonderland in Your Space
I’m sure you’ve heard about hygge. A few years ago, books about hygge, the Danish approach to winter coziness, was all the rage. (If you need an introduction, The New Yorker‘s 2016 piece, The Year of Hygge, the Danish Obsession with Getting Cozy, is a great place to start.)
Western articles about hygge tend to focus on the physical atmosphere. Every single piece will reference candles. The Danes are very big on candles being comforting. Personally, I worry about candles getting knocked over. If you have pets and tiny humans, consider safe alternatives to lit candles, like fairly lights or tiny, flickering LED tea lights.
Organize Your Holiday Gift-Giving With Social Science Research
It’s that time!
Every December, my professional organizing colleagues and I write blog posts about giving (and asking for) clutter-free gifts, experiential gifts, and gifts that that help you be more organized.
The years I’ve written about consumable gifts, I’ve made myself so hungry that I’ve stopped blogging halfway through to eat close approximations of whatever I’ve researched. And I’ve coveted experiential gifts of practicality, adventure, education, and pampering. I still want the Petite Cheese Storage Vault that I wrote about in Paper Doll’s Holiday Gift List: Warm Their Hearts and Fill Their Tummies.
Apparently it no longer exists, though Cheese Grotto™ seems to have a nice approximation!
But recently, I’ve been reading some scientific research that may help organize and improve the gift-giving process and reduce some of the (emotional and financial) stress around gift-giving.
HABITUATION AND THE DELIGHT OF GIVING
I’m reading Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, by Tali Sharot and Cass R Sunstein.
But guess what, it’s not just me saying that!
In reporting on his research review, Givi said that the published papers he looked at found several interesting things about experiential gifts.
What a Girl (or a Guy) Wants
First, as much as we professional organizers have tried to persuade you that experiences are the way to go, gift-givers like giving material gifts but recipients really want gift of experiences. In “Remember me, will you?”: Overusing Material Gifts for Interpersonal Memory Management, researchers found:
Givers are more likely than recipients to consider the memory consequences of gift options, as givers intuitively use material gifts as interpersonal mnemonic devices to facilitate the recipient’s retrieval of giver-related memories. As such, this preference discrepancy occurs in various stages of developing relationships but is mitigated in very close relationships.
In other words, “Hey, mom, remember when I got you that expensive hair dryer made by the people who made your vacuum cleaner?”
Organize Your Charitable Donation Strategy
Every day last week, your email inbox was filled with Black Friday and Cyber Monday notifications. But starting today and throughout the month, you’ll probably notice an influx of requests for charitable donations.
This starts with tomorrow’s Giving Tuesday, a unified movement that:
…unleashes the Power of Radical Generosity around the world. GivingTuesday reimagines a world built upon shared humanity and generosity.
Our global network collaborates year-round to inspire generosity around the world, with a common mission to build a world where generosity is part of everyday life.
Whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor or stranger out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts, and everyone has something to give.
The term “radical generosity” is defined as the concept that the suffering of others should be as intolerable to us as our own suffering. This may seem like an odd topic for an organizing blog, but I believe that organizing your efforts can allow radical generosity to reinvigorate the delight of giving.
THE UNIVERSALITY OF CHARITABLE GIVING
In Judaism, the concept of tikkun olam means “to repair the world,” and refers to the notion that people have a responsibility to improve the world through acts of kindness and social justice. Judaism also has the concept of tzedakah, commonly used to mean charity, but more fully is explained by the notion of making the world a more just place.
Though I am no expert on other faiths, I do know that charity is an important tenet throughout faith practices. In Christianity, it’s reflected in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Islam notes that the prophet Muhammad said, “Charity does not decrease wealth” to point out the value to the benefactor as well as to those who receive kindness.
In Hinduism, “There is none other who does greater good than the one who removes the hunger of those in a difficult situation, helpless, weak and disturbed.” And Sikhs believe in the concept of sewa, which means “selfless service,” helping others without expecting any reward or personal gain.
Of course, donating money (and goods) is not a concept specific to any one religion, or indeed any religion at all. Ideas such as charity and mutual aid (where a community shares and exchanges resources and services to help one other) can be found in every nation and at every income level. People make donations in their houses of worship and to their schools, to strangers on the street and to well-known non-profits.
Donating money (as well as volunteer time and skill) is a great way to model your values to your children and to others in your community. You could limit round-robin gift exchanges at work or among your extended family and work together to donate funds or effort to non-profits or causes that reflect your highest good.
So yes, thoughtful giving is good (and good for you), but the requests for giving can be overwhelming.
Just like how the clutter of too many possessions in a household can paralyze someone and prevent them from knowing what to do next, a mailbox or inbox cluttered with charitable donation requests can be problematic, particularly during the holiday season from Thanksgiving through the New Year, when everyone is focused on gratitude and lovingkindness.
But if you woke up to seventy-three charitable requests today, you might not be feeling very grateful, loving, or kind. I get it.
THE CHALLENGES OF CHARITABLE GIVING
There are a variety of obstacles people face when inundated with charitable requests.
Stress
- Being inundated by a flood of donation appeals — Non-profits know that you’re in a giving mood (or are feeling pressured to be in a giving mood). People are accustomed to donating at the end of the year, whether for religious, social, or tax reasons, so the donation campaigns behind mailers and emails and social media requests are part of the design.
- Pressure and guilt — It’s common to feel obligated to respond to every request with a donation or gift, even when it exceeds one’s budget or doesn’t align with one’s values. Nobody wants to feel selfish, but it’s important not to give more of yourself than you can afford.
Fears about security
- Increases in frauds, hoaxes, and scams — Sometimes, “charitable” requests come from bad guys using guilt trips and names just similar enough to real charities that it’s common to worry about whether your gift will get to anyone except a thief’s pockets.
- Validity of a charity — Even if a charity is “real,” even if it’s well-known, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a sizable portion of the funds raised will get to the expected recipients. Sometimes a shocking percentage of those donation funds go toward administration, chief executives, advertising, and anywhere but where you’d hope it would go.
Financial anxieties
- Budget constraints and unrealistic goals — At this time of year, our wallets pulled in different directions, like taffy. You’re likely to want to earmark funds for holiday gifts, meals, and travel, on top of regular expenses, but it can be tough to find the Benjamins for donations. Being overly ambitious with our charitable giving leads to the same kind of anxiety as when we’re overly ambitious about gift-giving to friends and family. It feels good in December, but when our January bank and credit card statements arrive? Ouch!
- Unplanned donations — There’s a reason you hear financial advisors talking about planned giving. Planning is organized, and when you are organized, you feel in control. When unexpectedly faced with an in-person appeal for a donation, the emotion of the experience combined with social pressure (on top of financial pressure) can prompt you to spend more than you can comfortably do.
Emotional kerfuffles
- Family disagreements — You thought the political arguments at the Thanksgiving table were stressful? Imagine trying to come up with a plan for family giving when the members of the family are of two minds regarding who is “deserving” of family donations. If one person wants to give to the NRA and another to support of LGBTQ+ teens, but the funds need to come from one couple-owned or family-managed source, sparks may fly.
- Decision fatigue — The sheer volume of need can be overwhelming. Everyone wants your money, and so many charities and worthy causes requesting donations, it’s often difficult to decide which ones to support.
- Charitable burnout — People who donate regularly may feel resentful from the ever-increasing demands during the holiday season.
- Compassion fatigue — Let’s face it. We’re human. Constant reminders of those who are hungry, abused or victimized, troubled, or struggling can become wearying, especially for those who already struggle with some of the harder emotions of the holiday season. While such requests often remind us to feel grateful for what we have, it’s not unusual to feel guilty for not feeling quite so grateful about our own struggles.
OVERWHELM COMES FROM LACK OF PRIORITIZING, PLANNING, AND ORGANIZATION
Over the past 23 years I’ve worked as a professional organizer, one of the constant holiday-time struggles my clients face is what to do about all of the charitable donation requests. Several years ago, I worked with a client on her backlog of important documents and papers. We were making great progress until I arrived one day to find her agitated. She admitted that she’d been “hiding” some papers because they were so stressful for her to think about.
In a room we’d never entered, there were desks, tables, chairs, and a bed, and a variety of other horizontal surfaces covered in envelopes — most of which had never been opened — all seeking donations! There were multiple years of requests!
At first, this sweet woman had just given a few dollars to everyone who asked, but that just led to more and more requests. (I’m not saying that non-profits sell their mailing lists, but yes, some non-profits sell, or at least “rent” their mailing lists. It’s ethically questionable, so before you give, you may want to read a charity’s privacy policy regarding whether they will share donor information without prior consent.)
The client and I started by eliminating all requests from prior giving seasons, then deleted duplicates (and triplicates). Then we developed a strategy that works for most people.
START WITH YOUR BUDGET
Just as some people prefer to say they are on an “eating plan” rather than a “diet,” feel free to think of this as a giving plan, rather than a budget. The idea is to set boundaries you can live with, as it makes no sense to donate so much to end hunger that you will be eating ramen noodles every day to make up for your economic shortfall!
Consider these factors:
- How much can you reasonably afford to give? This requires first having a handle on all of your fixed and variable expenses.
- Would you like to allocate a percentage of your monthly budget for donations? Do you prefer to tithe, set aside a fixed dollar amount per month, or pick some other percentage approach?
- Do you prefer to give an annual gift or arrange monthly contributions?
- If you choose monthly donations, do you want to donate to the same charity every month, or multiple charities but during different months?
- Do you want to set aside extra money (in monthly petty cash) for unexpected, ad hoc requests by organizations or individuals? (You might choose to keep a stash of gift cards for grocery stores or restaurants to give to unhoused or struggling folks you come across, rather than giving cash, to prevent them from becoming victimized by thieves.)
- Does your company offer an annual charitable donation match? If so, taking advantage can stretch your donation dollars!
FOLLOW THE MONEY
You will want to track your donations to make it easier to file your taxes and take all possible deductions.
If you respond to mailed requests for donations, you can write a note on the donation letter, stating how much you donated, on what date, by what method (check number or which credit card). Put that in your tax prep folder for the current year. When/if you get an official letter from the charity thanking you for your donation, match it to the corresponding note and staple it.
If you tend to make donations online, be sure to print a copy of your receipt as a PDF (if you want to keep records electronically) and maintain a donation folder on your computer or in your cloud storage. (You could also print receipts on paper and put them in your tax prep folder; just don’t double-count donations that appear in digital and print form.)
Of course, you can also use financial apps, budgeting software, or spreadsheets to track your charitable contributions. The more money you donate, or the more complex and numerous your donations, the more cautious you will want to be to keep these records for tax purposes. But tracking your donations is about more than just taxes.
In the heyday of magazines, as soon as you’d renew a subscription, you’d start getting reminders to renew again. The more subscriptions, the harder it would be to realize you were being prompted so often that you were subscribing more than once every twelve months. Well, with charities it can be much the same thing. Keep a written record of when you’ve donated to make sure you’re not donating more often than you planned.
CHOOSE YOUR CHARITIES, DON’T LET THEM CHOOSE YOU
Professional organizers often talk with clients about the dangerous power of advertising and in-store displays. We can be going along, thinking we’re doing great with our spending plans and then all-of-a-sudden we are sucker-punched by an enticing commercial or a product display. We didn’t plan to buy it. We didn’t need it. But oops, we got it.
Those donation emails and envelopes may as well be shouting: “This offer is available for a limited time only. Operators are standing by!” but the truth is that non-profits are always in need of money. You may get dozens of requests for donations in December, but your contributions will be no less valuable, life-saving, or appreciated if sent three or six months down the line. Unless you have a very specific need for making a very specific dollar amount of donations before the end of the calendar year, don’t let yourself feel pressured.
Decide on your giving goals in advance. Make this a giving plan.
Prioritize Your Values First
When you try to downsize a closet on your own, you might pick up one article of clothing and ask yourself “keep or set free?” (whether “set free” means toss or consign or donate or use as a rag). A straight-up yes/no choice can be difficult. But if a professional organizer asks you to first pick your ten favorite pieces from your closet and set them aside, it will be much easier to start evaluating your less-loved pieces.
Similarly, if you’re facing a mountain of charitable giving requests, choosing yes or no may feel like you are saving or damning the recipients of each non-profit. No wonder you’re stressed!
So, start by prioritizing the causes that align most closely with your values. For example, those might be:
- education
- the arts
- health/medical
- hunger
- animals
- children
- the environment
- faith communities
- disaster relief
- international relief
- social causes
- political causes
- at-risk communities
- marginalized communities
Once you’ve identified a general cause area that matters to you, you can narrow your focus. You can determine whether you want to donate locally to keep funds in your community or donate to a national effort with a more powerful network of resources.
Research Potential Charities
You do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are some excellent resources for evaluating non-profits and explaining how they rank on transparency, impact, and mission alignment. Consider:
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator has been around for almost 25 years, and has rated 225,000 charities. Their ratings focus on the “cost-effectiveness and overall health of a charity’s programs, including measures of stability, efficiency, and sustainability.”
GuideStar
Candid’s GuideStar focuses on non-profits in the United States. Search to verify a charity’s legitimacy, learn whether contribution will be tax deductible, view up to three years of a non-profit’s IRS Form 990, read revenue and expense data for the current fiscal year, and learn about a charity’s CEO, Board Chair, and Board of Directors.
BBB Wise Giving Alliance
Give.org, the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, generates reports that address all of the issues a donor might want to consider, including governance, finances, results reporting, transparency, and appeal accuracy
Charity Watch
Charity Watch, originally founded in 1992 as the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) claims to be the only independent charity watchdog in the United States. Charity watch notes that they “dive deep into charity audited financial statements, tax filings, state solicitation filings, and other information so we can let you know how efficiently a charity will use your donations to fund the programs you want to support. CharityWatch exposes nonprofit abuses and advocates for your interests as a donor.”
GiveWell
Rather than focuses only on financials, GiveWell conducts “in-depth research to determine how much good a given program accomplishes (in terms of lives saved, lives improved, etc.) per dollar spent.”
If you decide you want to focus on local charities, you’ll need to do more of your own legwork. For example, if you want to support a local shelter, food bank, or other community initiative, read the website, research who sits on the board of directors, and see where local news media has covered the impact of these charities.
Concentrate on local efforts that focus on long-term community solutions and have a record of efficient use of funds and a history of measurable results.
DEVELOP A DONATION STRATEGY
Once you know which causes are meaningful to you, you can delete or discard donation requests from causes that aren’t high on your list of values.
Yes, really.
Charitable causes are important, but not all causes have to be equally important to you, just as they need not be equally important to all individuals. You get to pick what you value.
Once you identify the causes you value, you can research the specific charities in each.
Let’s say eliminating hunger is important to you. It’s possible you’ll get requests from Feeding America (a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks), the World Food Programme (an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide), No Kid Hungry (providing grants to schools and partners to end child hunger), Meals on Wheels (working to end hunger and loneliness among the elderly), etc.
- Collect all the requests that come in via mail or email in a “holding area” until you’re ready to research them.
- Research the charities to see which appeal to you the most.
- Decide the number of charities to which you will give.
- Pick the frequency of your donations: one time or recurring?
- Divide your giving budget by the number of donations.
- Donate in a way that works for you.
- Record and track your donations for tax purposes. (Save receipts and acknowledgment letters in your paper or digital files)
- Evaluate amounts and charities annually.
For example, might decide to give to one national charity, once per year, in an amount that feels generous to you. Conversely, you might pick four of these charities and give once per quarter.
Alternatively, you could set up a monthly payment to one (or more charities) on your credit card, but you’ll want to revisit that plan annually to make sure the charity still fits your values.
Or, this process of reviewing your values may make you turn your attention to local concerns. You could still give small donations to one or more of the charities that fits you criteria, but then you could contact a local elementary school and offer to pay all outstanding meal fees. In many school districts, children whose families are behind on their lunch fees are unable to get hot lunches and are given cold lunches that make them a target of bullying. In other districts, they simply get no lunch at all. Hungry children cannot learn.
You could pick an amount to pay toward students’ outstanding lunch debt each month, or pool resources with your colleagues or neighbors to pay off those debts once or twice per year.
This is merely one example. You can make lots of donations in December to lots of charities, and then skip the rest of the year. You can pick twelve charities and give equal amounts, one per month, all year, and revisit the charities you’ll choose each year. Or you can mix-and-match local and national donations as you see fit.
The key is to mindfully research, plan, and track your giving so that it allows you to feel generous (and lucky to be able to help) rather than overwhelmed by charitable request clutter and anxious about the entire experience.
LIMIT DONATION ANXIETY
Creating a giving plan and sticking to it (at least for one year) will allow you to eliminate the excess requests before they pile up, but there are additional things you can to do keep from feeling like a Grinch.
Limit the solicitations that come your way.
If you are getting too much donation request mail or email — which, again, is really just (earnest) advertising, it’s OK to click to unsubscribe from the email or call to opt-out of the mailing lists.
Alternatively, you can use a dedicated email address (like PaperDollDonations@gmail.com) whenever you make donations. That way, you only need to check that address when you’re looking for donation confirmations for tax purposes, or when you’re in the mood to actually look at the plethora of mail sent your way. But it never has to hit your main inbox.
Let Go of the Guilt
Just because you receive address labels does not obligate you to make a donation to a charity, just as receiving a holiday card from a distant acquaintance does not obligate you add the individual to your card list. Don’t let them turn advertising techniques into a free ticket on the Guilt Trip Express. Use your brain — then give from the heart.
Learn to say “No” gracefully. Just as you cannot keep everything you ever bought or were gifted, you cannot donate to ever cause that asks.
To increase your comfort with saying no, prepare a mental (or written) script for declining requests.
Remind yourself (and if you wish, explain to others) that you have a planned giving strategy. You have organized your giving to ensure that your efforts are mindful and value-driven. You can, if you wish, give an ad hoc donation, but you can also just say you’ll be happy (if you will be) to consider a donation in your next giving cycle in 2026.
Finally, remember that you need not always give money. Donating your possessions, time, and service to non-profits can be even more valuable than the amount of money you could afford to donate.
Speaking of volunteering, we are sometimes asked to donate our time and effort to worthy causes at the holidays when our schedules least allow us to help. (Also, many popular volunteering activities, like serving meals at shelters, are booked quickly during the holidays.) But guess what? Shelters and food kitchens need volunteers year-round! Just as money is needed just as much on July 25th as on December 25th, our support of our neighbors, in our schools, in faith communities, and in standing up for others is always needed, no matter the season.
Happy Giving Tuesday (and Giving Season). Intentional and organized giving is rewarding. Build a sustainable, organized habit of giving and you will feel more in control of your finances, less stymied by paper and digital clutter, and less likely to feel burned out.
Keep the spirit of giving alive in a way that uplifts you.
Whoopsie! What To Do When Your Week Doesn’t Go As Planned
This isn’t the post I planned to write today.
And last week’s post never got written. In fact, last week did not go as planned at all. It went BOOM!
VERTIGO, BUT WITHOUT JIMMY STEWART
It all started last Sunday evening. I was chatting on the phone with a friend and getting ready to start writing a post for Janet Barclay’s excellent monthly Organizing and Productivity Blog Carnival. Usually I submit a post from the Paper Doll vault, but this time I wanted to write a new post, specifically for the carnival. (We’ll get to that later.)
As my friend and I were talking, I sat on the edge of the bed and then lay down to stretch my back. Immediately, I was overcome with a powerful sense of vertigo — not mere dizziness, or as though the room were spinning, but as though I weighed tons and was going to go barreling through the Earth. While it was not the worst I’ve felt in my entire life, it would rank in the top three.
Publicity Poster from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 Vertigo
I’ve had benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) twice before, and both times it was quickly dispatched by a seemingly magical series of movements called the Epley Maneuver. I’ve seen it be such a freaking miracle that I’m a typical explanatory video in this post. (Think of it as organizing for the inner ear!)
Unfortunately, this time, Epley let me down.
The next six hours seemed to pass like jump-takes in a movie. It was 6:35 p.m. and I was on the phone with Paper Mommy. The next thing I knew, it was almost an hour later. And then another hour. My insurance company has Teladoc built-in, and I’d previously registered, so I used the app to reach a physician for a video consult.
As a professional organizer, here’s how I thought it should work: I register for everything in advance (which I had). I click the button and provide my reason for seeking an appointment (which I did). And then I’d be connected with a medical professional.
Nope.
Although I registered for Teladoc when it first became available, I still had to try to type/dictate my medical history, all while lying flat on the floor and spinning. And I had to provide the address and phone number of my pharmacy…which was written on my prescription bottles…in the other room. (Crawling was agonizing. Have you ever seen someone try to do the backstroke on plush carpet? It was not pretty.)
After all that, I got a message saying someone would be with me within ten minutes. Then a message saying that {name redacted} was reading my file. Then a message saying, “Oops, sorry, we’ve canceled your video appointment. If you still need help, please try to schedule another Teladoc appointment.” Seriously?!
As I went through the entire process again, I noted the clock on my phone. I’d have sworn only minutes had passed, but almost another hour had gone by.
I’ll spare you readers the sordid medical details, but by the time I finally spoke to a Teladoc physician, I was instructed to call 911. When I asked why, the response was troubling enough that I only asked if someone could just take me to the ER.
I live upstairs. The prospects of having to go downstairs by myself to let first responders in or having them break down my door were equally unpleasant. Instead, I called my local bestie, Jen, to see if her husband could stay with her kids, and she immediately headed over to take me to the emergency room.
Moms know everything! She arrived with all sorts of Mom Emergency Paraphernalia, including an old-fashioned ice pack.
Although the panic was secondary to the rollicking vertigo and related symptoms, Paper Doll offers a full-service blog atmosphere, so may I also share this advice from Valera Health’s Mastering the Art of Panic Attack Prevention: From Panic to Peace (bolded emphasis is mine):
The keywords here are ice and sweets. If you’re able to, grab a cold washcloth, water bottle or ice cube and rub it on your face. Panic attacks can induce hot flashes so cold stimuli may help you to cool down and calm down, which in turn can shorten panic attacks and make them more bearable. Another way to try this type of sensory grounding is to quickly dunk your head or face under cold water (make sure the water isn’t too freezing first!).
Some people prefer to do the “sour candy trick” instead by sucking on a super sour candy when feeling panicked. The tart taste helps with refocusing and shifting attention away from the symptoms of a panic attack. If you’re prone to panic attacks, we recommend carrying sour candy around whenever you’re out and about so you always have them handy, just in case.
MAKING SENSE IN THE AFTERMATH OF AN EMERGENCY
Once the emergency, itself, is over, you’re left mopping up the mess. Dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster or a medical situation is usually more problematic than coping with your schedule, but eventually, you’re going to have to turn your eyes to the smoking piles of debris that used to be your carefully planned schedule.
You may not be able to do much right away. I collapsed into bed as soon as I got home from the ER. Though the meds they’d given me had me sleepy while there, my brain was spinning almost as much as the room had been. I had SO MUCH planned for the week prior to Thanksgiving. How would I get back on track?
The following are some of the concepts I put into practice. Whether you have a family emergency or just something that keeps you down for the count, these ideas should be useful until you can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Assess the Damage
Whether you’ve taken to your bed with the flu or a tree has toppled across your driveway (as happened to so many after this hurricane season), you can’t take action right away. But when you do have a sane, cogent moment to breathe, grab your calendar and your To Do list, and either a pad and pen or a blank Word doc or Evernote note.
Don’t be listless! Take a moment to list everything in your schedule that was disrupted (or will be disrupted).
That first morning was a Monday. Normally I would have completed the weekly Paper Doll post on Sunday night and spent the day doing marketing tasks, sharing my post and those of my organizing colleagues. Again, I hadn’t written the post, which I’d intended to submit to the blog carnival, but even if I had, dragging myself to the computer and lifting my head to the screen was a non-starter. But the world wasn’t going to end because my post hadn’t shown up in someone’s mailbox or social media feed.
Later that day, I had an appointment to get my hair cut, and had blocked time to prepare for guesting on Frank Buck’s Get Organized! podcast on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s schedule included the podcast recording, a first-time physical therapy appointment, a two-hour co-writing session, and two webinars I’d planned to attend.
As the week went on, I had client sessions, prospect consultations, and the variety of life activities (bill-paying, shopping, preparing for this week’s Thanksgiving adventures) that everyone has.
In addition, I had to figure out how (when the world was still spinning, though at a slightly less malevolent pace) to get my prescriptions filled and talk to my own physician regarding some things I suspected I’d need beyond what the ER had advised.
When I floated up into consciousness on Monday, at least I knew what was on my plate.
Prioritize Key Activities
In Use the Rule of 3 to Improve Your Productivity (which I invite you to read and embrace with all your heart and soul and calendar), I reviewed all the ways to manage your schedule and To Do list to keep life from getting in the way. But, as with my week last week, sometimes life is a giant elephant and you have no choice but to let it get in the way.
In that post (and further, near the end of Paper Doll Shares Presidential Wisdom on Productivity) I explained that when you’re overwhelmed, a great way to prioritize what you have to get done (and how and when to do it) is the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.
The Eisenhower Matrix gives you the opportunity to graph each task from your brain-dumped list to identify where it falls along a continuum of importance and urgency.
In a typical week of my schedule, what’s important is anything that brings in money, protects from “danger” (whether that’s a late fee or something more problematic), or directly impacts someone else. What’s urgent is anything that is time-specific in the short-term.
Identify What to Do, Decide (and Delay), Delegate, or Delete
Do
As I looked at the tasks, I realized that while my hair cut was not important, it was urgent to cancel so that my stylist would not be inconvenienced by a no-show. The podcast recording on Tuesday would have been both important (to me and to Frank) and urgent. And I had to arrange to get my prescriptions filled, as it turned out that one medication required me to be present at the pharmacy; it couldn’t be filled in absentia.
I sent two texts (to my stylist and to Frank) and arranged to get my prescriptions filled.
Decide
At this point, my wobbly brain decided that I could delay considering anything else until after more sleep. I didn’t know if I’d be able to go to my physical therapy appointment on Tuesday or my client on Wednesday, but I let that be Tuesday Julie’s responsibility. I crawled back in bed.
Delegate
I didn’t really have anything to delegate. I did, however, let my friend and colleague Hazel Thornton know what was going on in case I did not show up to our Tuesday co-writing session or a regularly scheduled Friday night Zoom.
I get it. Delegating is hard. Sometimes, it involves asking for a favor, and most of us are loathe to presume upon others or to seem as though we aren’t operating at 100%.
But delegating — whether it involves asking a friend to take you to the emergency room or trusting your spouse to take care of family responsibilities even if they won’t get done the way you would do them or giving the nod to an employee to handle something you would normally do yourself — is essential.
We can’t do everything. Even if we could, we shouldn’t. Leaning on others — respectfully — strengthens all of our human bonds.
This is my friend Jen, who rescued me. We’re afternoon tea buddies.
Sometime in the mid-1970s, I had a big event happening in third grade. I think I was giving a presentation, or maybe getting an award. Parents were going to be in attendance. But when I woke up that morning, my father told me that Paper Mommy had fallen and cracked her ribs during the night and would not be coming to school. I’m not sure how she managed it in those scant daylight moments before I woke up, but Paper Mommy had already arranged for my sister (eleven years my senior and attending college locally, living in the dorms) to be my plus-one at this event.
If she could have been there, she would have. That’s how Paper Mommy rolls. But she made sure that my eight-year-old self felt loved and valued without schlepping her wounded self to a ridiculous elementary school event. My sister rocked it!
Delete
My plan had originally been to write last week’s post about children’s books on organizing and productivity, and I would have included a link to Paper Doll Interviews Melissa Gratias, Author of Seraphina Does Everything! and talked about both my favorite books in these categories, as well as a few surprises from my childhood bookshelf.
I forgave myself for not writing the post and deleted it from my sense of self-obligation. By the time I left the emergency room, I told myself I could just submit some other post I’d previously written about organizing and productivity books.
For example, I could have submitted Paper Doll Presents 4 Stellar Organizing & Productivity Resources, which referenced Hazel’s What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy and reviewed her Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook.
That post also reviewed Kara Cutruzzula’s Do It Today: An Encouragement Journal, and Ellen Faye‘s Productivity for How You’re Wired: Better Work. Better Life.
I could have submitted Paper Doll Introduces 5 New and Noteworthy Books By Professional Organizers, which reviewed:
- Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work Is Never Done by Dr. Regina F. Lark, Ph.D, CPO® and Judith Kolberg
- Organizing and Big Scary Goals: Working with Discomfort and Doubt to Create Real Life Order by Sara S. Skillen
- Filled Up and Overflowing: What to Do When Life Events, Chronic Disorganization, or Hoarding Go Overboard by Diane Quintana, CPO®, CPO-CD® and Jonda Beattie, M. Ed.
- Mind Body Kitchen: Transform You & Your Kitchen for a Healthier Lifestyle by Stacey Crew
- Perfectly Arranged by Liana George
I could even have have bent the rules and submitted a link to the Book page at Best Results Organizing where I list my favorite organizing and productivity books.
Sigh.
But in the end, I slept through most of the ensuing days and missed the deadline to submit anything at all (likely disappointing nobody but myself). And sometimes, just as we have to tell ourselves that it’s OK to delegate, we have to accept that it’s OK to delete things from our task list.
Although I bowed out of Janet’s The Best Organizing and Productivity Books – Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival, twelve of my colleagues had great submissions, and I hope you’ll read them. And Sabrina Quairoli wrote a post called Children’s Books About Organizing Their Lives! Although it’s different from what I would have written (or may still eventually write), knowing that topic is out there in the world made it easier to delete this from my list.
Create a Realistic Recovery Plan
Before I was a professional organizer, I was a television program director. Partially because of my Type A personality and partially because the television industry eats people and spits them out, being realistic about what you could get done in a day wasn’t actually realistic.
We were expected to be able to do everything, at any moment. After two days out with the flu, I once almost passed out in the hall and ended up just working on the cold floor where there was nowhere to fall.
That’s wackadoodle.
Nowadays, I teach clients to break down their tasks into manageable steps and schedule them across the upcoming days or weeks to avoid overwhelm.
When your week has been blown to smithereens, you absolutely have to be realistic. Sometimes (OK, often), that means being prepared to change direction more than once. When Tuesday hit, I felt worse (until my doctor called in that additional prescription). I revisited everything on my list, and applied the Eisenhower Decision Matrix again.
I decided to not do anything on Tuesday beyond rescheduling that physical therapy appointment to the end of the week and canceling client sessions. Y’know what? The nice physical therapist was glad I was taking care of myself, and rebooked me without a fee. My sweet Wednesday client was soothingly concerned and called to see if her adult daughter could bring me any groceries when she’d be in my neighborhood.
Everything that I tell my clients — that it’s OK to stop and take care of yourself, and that people will generally understand — was true.
Remember to Communicate
Once you evaluate your priorities and figure out what you have to delay, delegate, or delete, make sure you communicate the essentials to the people who can make your life easier, as long as they know what’s going on. That may be family members, friends, colleagues, or team members.
Set realistic expectations, ask for help where and when you can, and just keep them updated on delays. At some point later, you’ll want to renegotiate deadlines, but until you’re feeling clear-headed and calm, you won’t really know what will fit where on your calendar.
Be Flexible with Replacement Dates
Whatever “whoopsie” of a week you’re trying to recover from, it won’t help to triple-stack the next week. Don’t try to overcompensate and “make up for lost time” — you’ll burn out.
Just as we always discuss when talking about time blocking, set aside blocks of unscheduled time in future weeks to catch up. But don’t fill every block of time. You need buffer time and breathing space.
Reflect On What You Might Do Differently Next Time
We always learn more from our mistakes and kerfuffles than we do from our successes. If your week gets blown up by an unanticipated event, use it as a learning experience.
Block a little time on your schedule for the next week to evaluate how you handled the disruption. Consider what kinds of changes, contingency plans, emergency backup, etc., you might put in place to make next time (and there’s always some kind of “next time”) into a softer landing.
Give Yourself Grace
Julie circa 1999 would have tried to show up for work the next day, and attempting to barrel through every task, even while dizzily wobbling into colleagues and walls and copy machines.
Julie circa 2024 made sure that nobody was left in the dark, didn’t over-apologize, and got about 18 hours of sleep each day for most of a week. And everything turned out fine.
Appreciate Normal Weeks
Organize Your Sleep When the Clocks Change and Beyond
Are you feeling wonky? If you live in North America, you turned your clocks back (or let all your digital ones do it themselves) over the weekend. (If you live in the UK, you did it a week ago. I don’t know what’s up with that, but you may still be feeling wonky.)
Although most of the negative effects of time change happen when we are springing forward to begin Daylight Saving Time, falling back to end it can still leave people struggling to wake up and feeling out of sorts for a few days, leading to some bumps in productivity.
So, if you’re feeling a little rough, don’t worry. Today’s post offers some gentle tips for feeling a little more at ease when the time on the clock and the time inside your head don’t feel friendly toward one another.
HELP YOUR BODY ADJUST TO THE TIME CHANGE
Whether you’re dealing with the time change in the spring or fall, the best way to adjust is always to shift your schedule gradually.
Unless you’re the kind of person who misses all the reminders about the clock change and shows up an hour late (or early) to Sunday brunch, or worse, for work on Monday, you have advanced warning. When the time change is on the horizon, adjust your bedtime and waking time by ten or fifteen minutes each night for several days prior. (Make a note on your calendar to start this at the beginning of March; Daylight Saving Time starts on March 9, 2025! I’m already counting down.)
This kind of incremental approach is supposed to give your body the time to adapt. Of course, we’ve just changed the clocks, so that option is out. Still, consider the following steps for helping your body adapt to the time shift. You’ll find that these steps are generally the same ones for attaining recuperative sleep, overall.
Be the Early Bird and Get Morning Sunlight Exposure
I’ll be the first to admit, I’m terrible at mornings. I’d happily take a flight or attend a Zoom at 3 a.m. before going to sleep, but I’d be hopeless doing the same things at 7 a.m. Early morning sunlight makes me growl. However, my science-y pals swear that natural light will help reset our internal clocks.
The research on circadian rhythms says that cycles of sunlight and nighttime darkness keep our bodies synchronized with our environment and signal our “circadian pacemakers.” This pacemaker is particularly sensitive to light in the morning and the evening, so evening light (such as we have all summer) causes a phase delay, so we don’t get tired until later and then we wake up later. Conversely, when we are exposed to bright sunlight in the morning, it causes a “phase advance,” and we start getting sleepy earlier and awaken earlier.
Sunrise Coffee Photo by Taryn Elliott
So, exposure to sunlight signals your body that it’s time to wake up; just some light permeating through your eyelids will have some kid of wakey-wakey-eggs-and-bacon-y effect. So, actually spending twenty minutes outside in the morning will help you feel less sluggish.
If the temperature allows it, take your breakfast out onto your back patio or balcony; you can enjoy your morning coffee on your front step, but if you amble out in your jammies, at least make sure you’re properly covered up as the school bus goes by.
Improve and Optimize Your Sleep Environment
We hear it all the time: it’s important to set a consistent sleep routine.
If you’ve been living the life of a college student (or a new parent) and are all out of whack (and this has been compounded by the end of Daylight Saving Time), be patient with yourself. Know that your body will need time to adjust to whatever changes you make, but sticking to a regular bedtime and wake-up schedule (sigh, even on weekends) will improve your odds of getting better quality sleep and more of it.
Research shows that your sleep experience will improve if you consistently do the following:
- Keep your bedroom dark. Close your blinds or curtains. If you have old-style horizontal Venetian blinds, you may find they let in too much light. If so, try twisting them “backward” such that the curved portion faces outward. Alternatives are the more modern, wider, vertical blinds or roller shades in darker colors.
Another great option is a blackout curtain, which is designed to eliminate as much natural light as possible. Note that the longer the curtain extends from the bottom of the window toward the floor, the less light will seep out.
Follow Me