Paper Doll, Media Darling — or Expert Organizing Advice and How to Get It
Who are the experts in your life?
We turn to doctors, lawyers, accountants, professional organizers… In my family, when I need advice about cooking or want to know if a booboo requires medical attention or is just one of those weird things, we refer to it as “opening the Mommy Encyclopedia” and I call Paper Mommy.
Sometimes, I get to be expert.
Real Simple and Photographs
Because I’m a professional organizer, I often get asked to share my expertise with the media. Sometimes, it’s an organizing or productivity topic that’s right in my wheelhouse. Other times, I need to do a little research, confer with colleagues, or make a referral to someone better-versed in the topic.
Back in January, Senior Editor Rachel Sylvester interviewed me about organizing and managing family photographs for the May 2021 issue of Real Simple. 
Longtime readers of this blog know that while brevity may be the soul of wit, longwindedness is the backbone of Paper Doll. I had a lot to say about organizing family photos, like:
- how and where to locate all the print and digital copies
- how to gather all your photos together so you can see the big picture (no pun intended)
- how to automate your backup (because you know I’m all about the belt-and-suspenders approach, using a local external backup drive and a backup in the cloud, like Backblaze)
- how to identify and eliminate duplicates
- how to eliminate fussy backgrounds or jerky ex-boyfriends with apps like Remove
or Slazzer, or the built-in background remover in Canva Pro. (Sadly, these apps only remove jerky ex-boyfriends from photos, not from your memory or personal history.)
Of course, organizing your photos only starts with these steps. Beyond the basics, you may want photo organizing and editing software, as well as a wide-variety of ever-changing photo storage options beyond your own Dropbox or local drives.
For example, while longtime free, effective June 1, 2021, Google Photos is capping free photo storage at 15 GB; after that, you’ll need a Google One account for $1.99/month for 100 GB. Other solutions include:
Apple iCloud Photo Library – Built into iOS devices, it’s 5GB for free, $0.99/month for 50GB, $3/month for 200GB, or $10/month for 2TB storage.
Forever – With a wide variety of storage options from 2GB (free) to 10GB up to 1TB, ranging from $13.30-$489.30/month. (Obviously, those mega-dollars are for professional-level storage.)
Flickr – Store one thousand photos for free, then consider $7/month or $60/year for unlimited storage.
Photobucket – Selections range from Beginner level for $6/month for 25GB, Intermediate for $8/month for 250GB, or Expert level at $13/month unlimited storage. (Note: You can only store uncompressed photos at the Expert level.)
When I work with clients, I bring my expertise on the first set of topics. We work together to gather photos (and slides – there are always slides!), plow through to eliminate most of the seventy-three shots of the front lawn of the new house the day they moved in (and yes, we eliminate some jerky boyfriend photos, too), and discuss storage options.
If clients want to digitize photos, we discuss their DIY options, but it’s not a service I provide. (You really can’t be an expert at everything.) Instead, I often send clients to my Atlanta-based colleague Jiffy Page of Pixorium, and I can tell you that her people treat my client photos with as much respect as (and often more than) families give their own old snapshots!
If clients have more complicated photo organizing needs, or they are far off from my service area and the project isn’t suitable for my virtual services, I recommend my colleagues. You can find superior photo organizers in two places:
The National Association of Professional Organizers – Use the geographic search from your zip code to find service providers who specialize in photo organizing. (After doing the zip code radius search, select “photography/memorabilia/collections” from the Residential Organizing and Productivity Categories drop-down.)
The Photo Managers (previously, the Association of Personal Photo Organizers, or APPO) – Search geographically and by a wide variety of photo-related services, including related areas, like backup solutions, data recovery, photo restoration, family history research, and more.
When I need advice on a photo organizing topic, I have my own experts to whom I turn, including:
Andi Willis of Good Life Photo Solutions in Georgia
Hazel Thornton of Organized For Life in New Mexico
Jill Yesko of Discover Organizing in Pennsylvania
Isabelle Dervaux Photo Organizer and Visual Storyteller in New York
And for those who want a grounding in photo organizing concepts for DIY projects, I recommend the book written by Cathi Nelson, the founder of The Photo Managers, Photo Organizing Made Easy: Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed.
Advice Among Other Professional Organizers
No man is an island, and no professional organizer operates in a vacuum, which is why you’ll often see us sharing one another’s advice and guidance.
Recently, Margarita Ibbott of Downshifting Pro published 15+ Great Professional Organizers to Follow and Read. I’m proud to have been listed among this group, and the post includes:
- 4 Canadian professional organizing bloggers
- 12 American professional organizing bloggers
- 1 Belgian professional organizing blogger
- links to the blogs of each
- links to the most popular post by each of us
And just last week, Melanie Summers of I Speak Organized published a post called Ask the Experts – Professional Organizing Trends and Industry Changes. Yep, Melanie quoted me (can you see a trend running through my post today?), and I held forth on the importance of continuing education in the professional organizing and productivity fields.
Many of the other nine veteran organizers interviewed for the piece are those you’ve seen me quote here and share on my social media, and they talked about finding your niche, the fact that Instagram-worthy spaces aren’t necessarily functionally organized spaces, and the ultimate fact that organizing needs to focus on the individual and not what’s trendy.
I encourage you to read Melanie’s post and click through all of the names linked at the bottom to read the extended interviews.
Hometown Girl Makes Good
In another media coup (well, it feels like it’s worthy of celebration), I was interviewed by Mary Fortune, Editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press Edge Magazine. It’s a digital magazine that focuses on business topics in my area; go ahead and click through to pages 28 and 29 to see my interview, but consider reading the other pieces, as the magazine covers a lot of ground in my 23-year adopted city.
If you’re a subscriber (hey, Chattanoogans!), then you can go directly to the interview without having to flip through the digital magazine pages; if you’re not, you may or may not get to see the entire interview. (Sometimes, it’s behind a paywall, sometimes it’s visible. The mysteries of modern media!)
Yes, it’s a bit of a provocative headline, but I don’t think you’ll be shocked by what I have to say about the barriers to getting organized, the benefits of a more organized life, and some tips you can put into practice to be more productive right away.
An International Footprint
Recently, I was interviewed by Victor Lang, the Chief Operating Officer of gini, a global business data analysis company, for a piece called SMEs on COVID Relief. (No, I didn’t know what SME stood for, either.)
So, at 9 o’clock Chattanooga-time one evening, I was interviewed by an American gentleman in Hong Kong for gini, a company based in Australia and New Zealand! If that’s not worldly, what is?
Ostensibly, the discussion was on how business leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises felt vaccinations would impact profits. However, topics did run farther afield, including discussion of the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of business owners interviewed. As a professional organizer, I’ve learned (and taught my clients) that there’s a difference between having a positive attitude and ignoring the importance of self-care and mental health, so you know I didn’t pull any punches.
They interviewed owners of 500 small and medium businesses around the world (in English-speaking countries), and it was interesting (but not surprising) to see how the availability of a national social safety net, the relative size of the companies represented, and the actual impact (in terms of COVID cases and the economy) led to the projections made. Feel free to read the article, including my quotes. (I guarantee you, I never imagined I’d ever be interviewed in an article on the projections of global business leaders.) Or, skip my part and surf the infographic gini developed from the article:
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Please include attribution to https://www.gini.co/ with this graphic.
Wrapping Up
While the point of this post may seem like an opportunity to give Paper Mommy something to kvell (Yiddish for brag) about, there is a larger point. Often, organizing and productivity clients feel guilty about seeking advice or help. They think (or others in their lives think) that they should be able to handle everything on their own.
In general (at least when we’re not in a pandemic), we don’t cut our own hair. We don’t set our own broken bones or determine our own optical prescriptions. We don’t code our own websites or home-school our kids in Advanced Placement physics. We don’t build our own houses or rebuild our own carburetors, and if we’re wise, we don’t just limit our mental health care to our own self-therapy. We can watch videos or read books on how to do yoga, but getting guidance from an expert determines we won’t tweak our backs doing a pose incorrectly.
We professional organizers and productivity specialists don’t have all the right answers, but we’re comfortable formulating the right questions. It’s OK to seek help.
Who are your experts?
Paper Doll Post:
That is one AWESOME POST!
There was a lot to take in so I am going to savour it with a cup of coffee and clicking on all the links. Thanks SO VERY MUCH for including a link to my Professional Organizers to Follow and Read post. I do believe strongly in collaboration been complementary and not competitive.
Sharing, because it’s that good!
It was a bit of a grab-bag, but I am really glad you liked it. I wanted to find a way to be informative and share all of these interviews and listings. Thanks for being a part of it, Margarita!
I so agree with you, Julie. When you have a problem it’s wise to seek advice from an expert. While many of our clients feel like they should be able to get organized (and stay that way) on their own, the fact remains that they are not. So, who better to turn to than those of us who are organizing and productivity consultants.
I also agree with Margarita. We are a collaborative group. I am very proud to work along side other organizers who freely share their expertise.
“A rising tide lifts all ships.” If we can all (all organizers, all humans) depend on shared wisdom, we’ll all be the better for it. Thank you for reading and being one of my sources of expertise!
What a great collection you have here, in fun to read Julie style. As usual, you made me laugh out loud so I had to share both tweets.
I am often trying to eliminate a thing from a photo. Most often, I’m not successful. And, I don’t like the checkerboard background results from Remove. ( Or a background showing that I’m at a zoo, in the middle of the rainforest, or climbing a mountain.) I’m intrigued by Slazzer and I’ll certainly tell all my girlfriends with ex boyfriends about this.
LOL, and I always love that you find my posts fun. Often, I’m writing to entertain myself and hoping it’ll work for others. FWIW, when I’ve used BG, the checkerboard background disappears once you place it on whatever background you’re using. So, if you remove the background of the beach and it’s replaced with that checkerboard and then post it on your blog (where there’s, for example, just a white background screen) then your photo will just appear against the white background, the shape of the person (or whatever) rather than square or rectangular like a regular photo. You shouldn’t ever see the checkerboard once you place the photo at its final destination.
I wish I had read this article when trying to photoshop an ex-boyfriend out of my dad’s wedding photos, hahaha. Excellent round up, as usual. I’ll be checking out your additional interviews later today to share! Thanks for including my article <3
Melanie, your post was the turning point in my decision to write this. I was just going to share some interviews on my Press Room page until I realized that collaborative wisdom was a thread running through all of this. Thank you for reading!
What a wonderful post, Julie! It’s chock-full of Oh, So You! I mean that in all the good ways. I love how you share your expertise and photo tips, share your expertise as an organizer in the world and share the idea that even experts don’t have all the answers. We are so lucky to have tons of great resources and a very generous group of colleagues that openly share their knowledge and experience.
I have the current copy of Real Simple waiting for me to read. And I can’t wait to dive in and find you in the pages. I always get a kick out of seeing you in print. It makes me smile. Kudos to you for all the great placements and media shoutouts. Way to go, Julie!
“Oh, so me!” from you is quite the compliment, Linda! I like getting to share my media exposure, but it’s not really *interesting* to anyone but my mom and myself (and yes, dear friends like you). But being able to tie all these threads together made sense to me, even if the title is a little too cute. 😉
Oh, gosh, this reminds me of the Resources section of my own forthcoming book! “Compiling resources for a book like this is like herding cats…there are far too many storytelling websites, photo apps, genealogy tools, and esteemed colleagues to list them all…”
I see a few things here I want to return to. And one thing for certain, no matter how long your blog posts are, Julie, they’re always worth the read!
Hazel, you couldn’t have said a nicer thing. I’ve got a lot of words to share, that’s for sure!
You go, girl! Seems like you were everywhere in recent days. You represent our profession so well. I’m so happy for you! 🙂 Plus, I love all of your advice. AND, I completely agree that increasing vaccination rates is good for business. I’ve never been so busy. Sort of feel like people are coming out of their caves, opening the windows, blinking their eyes, and thinking, “Whoa, I need some help with this!”
Who are my experts? I admire the ones you mentioned, and a bunch who live in my local area and help me get things done. Over the weekend, my husband fixed a plumbing problem in the shower, which sort of blew me away. So I think I need to add him as an expert, at least for the moment!
I’ve been thinking I may need to expand upon this post, perhaps create a page on my site for listing all of my go-to people in each category.
Thank you for your kind words!
My kids used to call me Phemomemom (a phenomenal mom). I really appreciate your interview and the infographic had some great info. My business (of course) suffered in 2020. Thanks to government assistance we survived. I wonder how business without managed to survive. 2021 has been up and down but seems to be getting better lately. Also thanks for the photo organizing info. That is my least favorite type of organizing project, so it’s good to know that there are people I can turn to if that type of job comes along.
I think, even if we’re experts (maybe, especially if we are) that it’s important to know where to turn for other experts. Thank you for reading!