Best Results Organizing

Last Thursday was National Clean Out Your Fridge Day, and my colleagues (by way of Janet Barclay’s excellent Professional Organizers Blog Carnival) shared their wisdom and advice. With just days to go until Thanksgiving, people all over America have been making meals of ill-matched foods, just to clear space for the elements of the holiday spread. Sometimes, I feel like the Paper Doll Organizing Carnival is a bit like that — dribs and drabs of news and information saved up (or left over), making for a quixotic (if hopefully yummy) bloggish meal. As you head off for your holiday pursuits, I hope you find a morsel here that suits your tastes.

ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME

Are you rushing around to get ready for Thanksgiving? Do you need to remember what (or whom) to pick up when (and where)?

Paper Source, whose motto is “Do Something Creative Every Day” is often the source for enchanting solutions for organizing, and I recently saw two cool alternatives that may come in handy, particularly during the planning-heavy holiday season.

Although professional organizers recommend real calendaring systems (whether paper or digital), sometimes people need something very simple, or an extra, in-your-face reminder. This Color Block Notepad works for either.

These colorful 50-sheet, 10″ x 10″ day-of-the-week notepads adhere to a wide variety of surfaces, including finished wood, glass, tile, stainless steel, mirrors, and laminates, making them suitable for middle school and high school lockers, college dorm room mirrors or doors, the front of the fridge or the side of your file cabinet in the office.

There’s a colorful cube for each day of the week, plus a double-wide section for notes. Kids can keep track of which days they have gym glass or need to bring their musical instruments for lessons; you can track your workouts or remind yourself which lunch to pack. This won’t replace your calendaring system, but it’s a cheery introduction to time management for younger kids and a keen reminder or tracking system for the special-attention issues in your life.

I also liked the Bamboo Desktop Message Board. This is great for those who prefer a tactile writing experience over digital solutions, at least for simple notes in the kitchen or office, but who don’t like the environmental impact of disposable options or the bland nature of a traditional white board.

This 5 1/2″ x 9″ x 2″ non-magnetic dry-erase board features a sustainable, patent-pending bamboo surface and allows you to organize quick notes, messages or grocery lists with a swish of the board’s chubby black marker. It’s $14.95.

If you’d just like to make sure your Thanksgiving-morning breakfast isn’t interrupted by family members jumping up from the table to grab their phones, gadgets or Moleskines to record what they need to do on Black Friday, Decor Craft, Inc. has you covered.

Napkin Notes, designed to look like legal pads, measure 7.88″ x 7.88″ x 0.75″ and come in sets of 20 dinner-size napkins. You can find them at quirky gift, party and stationery retailers, and on Amazon. (Just remember Paper Doll’s feelings about floozies!)

PUBLIC LIBRARY AMNESTY

A recent story about the Chicago Public Library‘s first amnesty program in two decades caught my attention. In 1993, a Chicago woman inherited a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde when her mother passed away. Except the woman’s mother never actually owned the book; in 1934, the mom’s childhood chum checked out the copy (part of a 14-volume set of Wilde’s work, printed in 1911 — one of only 480 copies ever printed)!

Just as Dorian Gray walked the earth while his portrait became ever more decrepit, the book passed from friend to mother to daughter, while some microfiched ledger was toting up library fines day by day, year after year. The amnesty program allowed the woman to return the 78-years-overdue book without having to go into debtor’s prison. Well, actually, the Chicago Public Library caps fines at $10, but fear of returning such an obviously overdue book apparently had the library patron somewhat apprehensive for close to twenty years.

(While it’s not something one likes to advise, Paper Doll does wonder why the woman didn’t just carefully wrap the book and leave it in the library’s return drop-box at some point over the last two decades.)

Library amnesty programs are a great way to regain valuable items lost from collections by eliminating the twin obstacles of guilt and fear (of fines) that usually prevent return. If you have a habit of delaying return of borrowed library items (either because of disorganization in your home or trouble with time management), call your public library system to find out if there’s an annual or periodic amnesty program. And to keep yourself on the straight and narrow in the future, perhaps you might “borrow” some of these tips on keeping track of your library books in a classic Paper Doll post on how library borrowing can reduce book clutter.

DISAPPEARING INK

I suspect that most people fail to return their library books because they get interrupted while reading and hope to finish reading before (or not long after) the book is due. Buenos Aires publisher Eterna Cadencia has its own twist on increasing readers’ senses of urgency. They’ve released El Libro que No Puede Esperar, which translates as The Book that Cannot Wait – an anthology of new works of fiction printed in ink that disappears two months after the book is opened!

Does this bring to mind a reversal of the grade-school science project where the ink is made of lemon juice and made visible by holding it over a light bulb? To be clear, the book doesn’t disappear sixty days after it’s printed; rather, each newly printed book is enclosed in a plastic wrapper. Once the book is purchased and the wrapper is removed, the ink begins to rapidly age, just like in the “Deadly Years” episode of Star Trek. If you buy a copy today, by New Year’s Eve, The Book That Cannot Wait will be nothing but blank pages.

As this video explains, it’s a high-tech method and a bold publishing move:

It’s a novel (if you’ll pardon the pun) approach. For many readers, this might be exactly the impetus they need to devote time to a reading list; for others, the prospect of “failing” (to read the book) and losing the monetary investment might make them shy away. And, of course, as serious readers know, when you love a book, you want to share it and sometimes reread it on multiple occasions, options which this seriously limits. It’s a cute publicity stunt, but Paper Doll can’t recommend any option which sets the more organizationally-challenged up for anxiety.

What do you think? Would you race to read and buy a book you knew would disappear off the page? Some people would — the first edition sold out in one day!

PAPER WRAPS ROCK, BEATS (PRACTICALLY) EVERYTHING ELSE

I know I said last week that I wouldn’t be including anything on the future of paper in this week’s post, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t call attention to Time Management Ninja’s 5 Ways Paper Beats Your Tech. TMN’s Craig Jarrow spells out just a few of the purposes (brainstorming, note-taking) and the attributes (simplicity, reliability and the gosh-darn satisfaction of manually crossing something off your list) that make paper essential for organizing thoughts and information.

Future generations may accomplish everything on glass and metal pads (just like on Star Trek), but Paper Doll still considers putting pen to paper to be the ultimate no-tech solution to many problems, and until it isn’t, I’ll be back with more ways to organize your paper (and paper alternatives), post after post.

And for this, I am truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all Paper Doll readers. May you travel safely, eat well, and enjoy your time, however you spend it. (And for you Canadian readers who celebrated your Thanksgiving last month, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the south-of-the-border peace and quiet brought on by our collective turkey-induced stupors.)