Best Results Organizing

Today’s quote yields two important points. First, love is eternal. Awwww.

Second, it shows that paper is not love, and the things written on paper (with the exception of declarations of love) are not deserving of so much of our space, time and effort that we inconvenience ourselves and our loved ones to make room for the scraps of dead trees and cellulose.

I have a wonderful client who has incorporated many organizing systems and skills into his repertoire, and his life is far improved from the clutter-laden stress cubicle I first encountered. However, he’s had one habit of which we could not break him: writing everything on small scraps of paper.

Mr. Wonderful Client operates two businesses: a brick-and-mortar retail operation with multiple locations and a multi-level marketing company for which he has literally thousands of contacts. He’s also actively involved in his incredibly-adorable children’s lives and is a devoted husband, son, brother and friend, a volunteer for his alma mater and his house of worship, and a man with many disparate interests.

Even if you didn’t know these things before you saw his office, a cursory glance at the mountains of loose scraps of Post-It notes, scribbled envelopes, doodled napkins and notes on the peripheries of unrelated faxes would clue you in to all the activities and thoughts pressing upon him.

I advised multiple techniques to downsize his excess scraps:

• Carry one notepad everywhere (attached to a clipboard if necessary) and put every new subject, conversation notes or transcribed message on a new page, with a date-stamp (and time-stamp, if helpful). Follow up each issue on that particular page until you can tear it off and either file it as archival, use it as a task reminder in a tickler file or throw it away.

• If you can’t write on an actual notepad (say, if you’re in restaurants, the restroom or on the golf course), use a cell phone to leave messages for OfficeYou while you’re being MobileYou.

• Regarding tasks and phone numbers, once back at the office, instead of transcribing messages onto scraps, immediately program phone numbers into a PDA or your computer’s contact management software to bypass paper altogether.

• To capture information quickly, use the memo option on a cell phone to record quick reminders or contact information. Then, set a daily alarm right on the cell phone to remind you to listen to your messages and copy the information to where it belongs.

Mr. Wonderful Client doesn’t favor high-tech solutions, but anyone addicted to loose papers could also:

• Create all notes digitally as text messages and then text or email them to email account accessible at any computer.

• Invest in an 21st century magic, like the Logitech IO2 Digital Pen. With this device, you take your notes with a special pen and paper, and your handwriting is stored for later uploading into the computer for use in a word processing document, spreadsheet, contact management program or presentation software. Basically, your handwriting magically becomes typed text!

Mr. Wonderful Client became adept at keeping himself from writing TASKS on scraps of paper and succeeded at using his tickler file to keep all his action-oriented papers flowing smoothly as I’d taught him.

But the snowy flutter of minuscule papers bearing phone numbers and small details (price quotes, confirmation numbers, etc.) continued unabated until one magical day. As we worked our way through a small pile, it struck me that perhaps his own devotion to his wife, family and gentlemanly upbringing could work in our favor. I wasn’t sure how he’d take it, but I said I thought I had a solution to the loose paper issue.

I shouted “NO MORE FLOOZIES!”

He titled his head in confusion.

“Stick with me, here. Y’know how a good man, such as yourself, may sometimes feel passionate and want a kiss?” This giant of a man blushed and nodded.

“But you love your wife and are magnificently devoted. No matter how much you want a kiss, you’re not going to grab any loose woman who saunters by. You’re going to wait until you can take your wife in your arms. Those loose women are floozies, and they’re bad for you…LOOSE PAPERS are FLOOZIES, and your notepad and message system is like your wife. Stay faithful!”

My client’s wife (that would be Mrs. Gorgeous Model-Client) was nearby and suggested that she could be supportive by threatening to give him a (playful) slap every time she saw him “cheat” with the floozies.

Silly? Absolutely. A perfect solution? Absolutely not. But the key to all organizing systems is that they must be customized to the user.

Be willing to experiment and personalize your approach. Don’t worry if the organizing system in a best-selling book or taught by a famous professional organizer isn’t perfect for you—allow yourself to be creative and develop a narrative or mythology that works for your mindset.

To be faithful to any system, perhaps you need to step beyond the plain notepad to find yourself the right trophy spouse with which to collect your notes. Fun options include:

• A phone message book works well for tracking contact information until it gets into a more permanent system.

• Consider some pretty and artsy notepads. (Note: if you’re like me and are hesitant to write in a notebook that’s too darn pretty, under the rubric of “Oh, I can’t cut that beautiful cake and ruin the lovely frosting”, stick with plain yellow legal pads. The last thing you need is a stack of fancy but unused bound paper.)
  

• If you’re not ready to skip paper altogether, but really need to have your information saved digitally, look into that Logitech IO2 Digital Pen. Just don’t ask Paper Doll how it works.
  

If loose papers are the bane of your existence, remember that paper is not love, and be faithful: steer clear of floozies!