Best Results Organizing

As I mentioned in last week’s post, the NAPO conference in Reno included, as it does every year, an expo where vendors get to show off their wares. We were treated to a variety of nifty non-paper-related goodies, including:

Neat Containers–I can best describe this by asking you to picture a game of Jenga, only instead of small wooden pieces, imagine you’re in Land of the Giants (so that Jenga is really big) and the Jenga pieces are made of sturdy and transparent plastic boxes in which you could store stuff. Stack the pieces and let them interlock, but you can pull out various ones without the others tumbling down. It’s a nifty way to store shoes and boots, accessories, or anything else where the item itself doesn’t lend itself easily to stacking without containerizing.

Tote Trac–is a spiffy garage/attic storage system that allows you to make use of all that dead space near the ceiling or rafters to store all the different plastic totes you’ve currently got stacked, gathering dust, around the periphery of your storage spaces. My colleague (and heretofore known as fashion plate extraordinaire) Lorie Marrero blogged about this last week at Clutter Diet Blog, and does more justice to the system than your garage-averse correspondent can provide.

ScrapRack— Paper Doll is, sadly, not a scrapbooker. I know, it’s a terrible failing of mine (or a reflection of my fabulous memory that I don’t need tangible proof of that which I recollect), but there are some scrapbooking geniuses out there, like Aby Garvey and Aby Garvey (nope, that’s not a typo–she’s here at OnlineOrganizing.com and has her own blog elsewhere) and Megan Spears, and Jennifer Crabtree who can keep you better informed about the world of scraps that you should keep. Well, these scrappy ScrapRackers have come up with a way to keep all those papers and borders and doodads (OK, I told you I don’t know about this stuff) portable, so you can access your materials easily at Scrapping Bees without having to schlep your whole portfolio with you. (What? That’s not a thing? There are quilting bees, why not scrapping bees? Be on notice, scrapbookers of the web, if there’s no such thing, I’m trademarking the idea!) There’s even a little video available to see how the ScrapRack system works.

But Paper Doll is all about paper, so we don’t want to get too far afield. There were two vendors who warmed my heart the most.

First, it will come as little surprise to friends that Paper Doll has bad penmanship. Always have. I can concentrate and make it acceptably dainty, sacrificing speed, and thereby wasting valuable time that could be spent watching the newest episode of Lost or crafting this blog. One of the first and greatest joys in my professional life was acquiring a Brother P-Touch 65 Home & Hobby labelmaker to ensure my folders and containers are pleasingly-labled, but the fine folks at Brother have told me my little green pal is obsolete.

The king is dead; long live the (new) king: the Brother P-Touch 80…the Brother reps actually showed me a whole royal family of labelmakers. My Home & Hobby is still chugging along (in perfect condition, I should note), but an organized person must always plan for the future. Some labelmaker tips:

• Unless you’re a non-typist, get one with a QUERTY keyboard. The Star Trek tri-corder style where the letters are in alphabetical order will drive a touch-typist to distraction.
• “Crack & Peel” labels (much like the shrimp) are easier to use for those without long fingernails. In the olden days, I used to believe that Brother had the better labelmakers while their competitors (like Dymo) had the better label tapes. Now, depending on the tape used by the machine model you prefer, you can have the best of both worlds.
• I’d hate to be sued for saying this, so I’ll be oblique. A certain Doyenne of Domesticity turned poncho-wearing jailbird, whose name rhymes with Siddhartha had previously marketed her own line of labelmakers. It’s been my experience (and those of my clients) that those break easily and have been known to reach their demise while still in their shrink wrapped packages. Forewarned is forearmed.

Another of Paper Doll‘s favorite companies is Pendaflex, part of the Esselte/Oxford/Pendaflex/Xyron family of productivity goodies. (Warning: turn down your speakers if you visit them this week. The site is running a cute-the-first-time commercial for their Earthwise 100% recyclable products (about which we’ll discuss more when the whole world isn’t already caught up in Earth Day talk).

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have a strong affection for real filing systems, in 1/3-cut interior filing folders (of any color or style you prefer), with sub-categoried folders inside of broader categories in hanging folders. Sure, Pendaflex has them all. However, as much as Paper Doll is loathe to admit it, some people just won’t join on the vertical filing bandwagon, and Pendaflex is much more flexible than Paper Doll. Indeed, they developed a whole new system around pilers who don’t want to be filers! (Yes, I’m shocked!)

Right now, when you file, you look in front of you and your files are vertical, perpendicular to your face. Well, with this snazzier version alternative to the pile up, where all your stuff rises in layered heights until it falls or bumps into the wall, you can look down instead of straight ahead, and the tabbed labels of the system are still perpendicular to you. You still need to square the edges, but the PileSmart Desktop organizer tray makes it easy and their keen clips double as label tabs, so you always know what files and documents are where. More importantly, anyone else who needs to find something amid your piles can do so, too.

Don’t quite get it? Check out Pendaflex’s full downloadable how-to explanation for piling smart. (Paper Doll would still prefer you filed and not piled, but she’s feeling magnanimous now that the jet-lag has receded.)

Happy Earth Day!