Paper Doll
Transferring Power…and Paper: The First Day at a New Desk
Do you have a new office?
The concept of the American inaugural process is fascinating to anyone who has studied history. Throughout most centuries, transfer of power between leaders involved one death (of the monarch) or lots of death (from the blood of war). No matter who one favors in any given election, the notion of a celebratory and bloodless transfer of power every four or eight years is remarkable…in both theory and practice.
But what about the transfer of stuff? All last week, the news reporters were talking about how, in six hours, a White House staff of 95 (the one group of people who never even get to watch the inaugural speeches and proceedings), using only two elevators, will move all of the outgoing president’s (and his family’s) belongings out while simultaneously moving all of the incoming president’s (and his family’s) belongings in…and not just in, but organized and put away. The new First Family (and every new First Family in modern times) arrives at their new home without a packing box in sight!
(Wouldn’t you love it if every household move you made could be so free of chaos?)
Paper Doll, however, has noticed that nobody ever interviews the Civil Service or administration staffs about effecting the transfer of paper, files and documents. Whenever you see the Oval Office (whether the real
or fictional 
variety), any president’s desk is pretty devoid of paper clutter (though there always seem to be lots of photos and knick-knacks).
I’ve often wondered if an efficient aide whisks away any document the minute the president has ceased using it so that our Commander in Chief may request it (Mrs. Landingham?!!!) as if from a reference librarian, to ensure that nobody ever has to whisper a sing-song “Well, we were going to give everyone a $10,000 tax credit, but somebody seems to have lost the file between his desk and his curved office walls.”
So, whether you’ve just been put in charge of a country, a company or a cubicle, there are a few things you might want to do in the early days to get a handle on the paper bequeathed to you by the former occupant(s):
Don’t Complain
Don’t be quick to make assumptions about the last owner of the office. Skillfully organized files are not necessarily signs of genius (though Paper Doll likes to believe it’s so), nor do toppling piles tell you anything about the intellect of your predecessor. For all you know, the last person spent every waking hour trying to undo the clutter of her predecessor. Don’t badmouth his (or her) paper systems (or lack thereof). If anyone asks, your working quickly to get up to speed and customize the material into a system that lets you maximize everyone’s priorities. (Or create your own brand of corporate-speak.)
Create Categories
Once you’ve gone through everything, you’ll have a better sense of what you have as well as what you can toss, but start by sorting the papers and files into categories that work for you. At the beginning, think in terms of:
- Emergency contacts–Even if you have a Rolodex or computer database, there are going to be addresses and phone numbers for people you’ll be calling to beg for help in the early days. Set aside loose papers bearing that data so you can make an emergency file. Once you’ve created a list on the computer, print it out and keep it on the wall or bulletin board next to your desk.
- Administrivia–Maintain information about your staff, if you have one, handbooks and policy manuals, human resource policies, general 401(k) and other benefits information. If your interview did not make clear all of the administrative or supervisory duties you’ll have, now is the time to find out.
- (Personal) Personnel/Financial–Keep copies of blank and completed time sheets, vacation request forms, evaluation forms, expense report sheets, and purchase orders; if possible, keep your personal benefits and financial information in files at your residence rather than at work.
- Contracts–Make sure the documents you have are valid and up-to-date. Once you’ve sorted them, take notes and make a cheat sheet so you can consult the deal points (costs, schedules/delivery dates, contact numbers, etc.) at a glance. Create the information in a spreadsheet you can easily change, and keep a printout handy.
- Clients/Customers–Again, use the files to help you create a cheat sheet until you are familiar enough to chat with clients without any notes. Make sure you’re clear on who is a prospect vs. who is or was an actual client.
- Vendors or Service-Providers–Are the files complete? Up to date? If the previous occupant wasn’t diligent, you might have brochures and background on companies that are no longer in business.
- Creative or marketing–If you can sort creative work by project or type, and then in reverse chronological order by date, you’ll have a sense of the history of each project. If papers lack background information, you can sort visually, by what “seems” to match, until you can check with others.
- Computer information–Passwords, file names, network protocols all need to be sorted out and updated (See below)
- Computer manuals–Don’t clutter the prime real estate of your desk or drawers with these files. Obtain and use a small bookshelf for reference documents.
Get a Reality Check
Make a list of all the vendors, clients and/or contracts you currently have and check them against the computer records and the records of your financial department. If you have a staff, make sure the employee files (including pay data) are in a drawer you can lock.
Change the Passwords
There’s no knowing how long those Post-Its bearing passwords have been affixed to the monitor for all (from coworkers to cleaning staff) to see. Check with IT and/or your supervisor, and then change and document every internal and external password. Keep this information under lock and key.
Request Feedback
Talk to your boss, your colleagues, your assistants early in the moving-in process to make sure you haven’t made erroneous assumptions. For example, Joe’s Little Store could actually represent millions of dollars to your company, and files called “Important Stuff” could yield nothing worthy of your attention. Find out what your boss (and his assistant!) thinks are the most important clients or customers, what are the most urgent priorities (so you can search for papers related to them amid the toppling piles) what were the biggest mistakes made in the past
Get Rid of Ghosts
In other words, you need to jettison the former occupant of your desk. Seriously. You don’t need her dental appointment reminder cards, the novel she was reading, or her children’s artwork. If you’re inclined, you can put anything personal in a big kraft envelope and give it to the human resources department to transfer to the former owner. The stuff doesn’t belong to you, so deciding what to keep and toss doesn’t fall under the purview of your position. Let HR work it out.
Develop A System That Works For You
Even if it means coming in on a few Saturdays, create a filing system for your action papers and reference documents that works the way you think. The type of system is only important in that you will likely only commit to using something that makes sense for you.
You spend a third or more of your life in your office, and much of that time at your desk. Don’t you want to use that time as efficiently and as effectively as possible?
- Become a member of the Clean Desk Club and you’ll likely impress your boss, improve your productivity and reduce your stress level.
- Get a tickler file (and learn how to use it) to handle actionable papers (those that represent tasks) and start by following up on the stuff your predecessor failed to complete. The sooner you close those open loops, the sooner you can craft your office set-up to reflect the way you work best.
- Consult your supervisor, your contracts and your colleagues to make sure you know all of your upcoming deadlines, and schedule them in your planner. Work backwards from those deadlines to make sure you have all of the documents you need to get where you want to go.
Of course, if you’re the leader of the free world and are reading this for tips on how to handle the papers left by the other guy, maybe you should just forward the URL for this post to your Chief of Staff? With all due self-respect, Paper Doll thinks you may have more important things to do right now.
A Different Kind of Bankruptcy: Jettison Email Overwhelm
[Editor’s note: This post from the Paper Doll vault was originally published January 13, 2009, back when we were still using two spaces after a period. Sixteen years later, email still plagues people, so this post has been refreshed and updated as of February 2025.]
My parents once told me about a long-lost relative who, when his bank statement got too terribly out of balance, withdrew all but a small amount (estimated to cover all outstanding checks), opened a new checking account at a different bank across town, and abandoned the old one! New bank account, new check register, new sense of freedom.
That long-ago relative declared bankruptcy on his unfathomably unbalanced checking account.
We tend to think of bankruptcy as a bad thing, and certainly by the standard definition, but it’s sometimes the best of a bad set of options. When you lack the funds to pay your bills, bankruptcy is the legal option that allows people (or businesses) to liquidate their assets, create a payment plan going forward, and start fresh without the stress associated with unpayable debts.
But today, let’s look at a different kind of bankruptcy, inspired
EMAIL BANKRUPTCY
In the 21st century, that old story has new wings. For avid web surfers, the idea seemed to have started with a man named Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist. In early 2007, Wilson declared bankruptcy on his blog — email bankruptcy. He wrote, simply:
Wow.
While Wilson’s pithy post got linked and tracked and repeated all over the web (and this, in the days before social media), he wasn’t the first.
It turns out the real father of this movement might have been Stanford professor, copyright attorney and Wired columnist Lawrence Lessig, who, in 2004 sent an email to everyone in his address book, apologizing for a “lack of cyber decency” (which, I suppose, we could almost consider 21st century moral bankruptcy), and saying that if anyone was awaiting a response to an as-yet-unanswered email from him, they should reply directly to this particular email, implying all emails that had come before would be ignored.
Lessig apparently saw a declaration of email bankruptcy as the only option to allow him to repay any of his email debts — attacking the most urgent or important would be better than the hopeless and time-consuming attempt to handle them all. With this method, he’d give “creditors” with the most valid claims on his time a chance to recoup their long-awaited loses, and he’d start clean.
Certainly, this method has some appeal. Lessig and Wilson absolutely aren’t the only ones in email bankruptcy court; they’re not even the only high-profile ones. Even musician Moby (known for his high-tech & digitally-designed creations) is reported to have done it.
Although often credited to Lessig, the term email bankruptcy seems to have been coined a full decade ago by MIT Professor Sherry Turkle, and she’s been speaking on the subject for a decade, and as recently as national conferences in 2008. Apparently, the fantasy of freeing oneself from the burden of massive and multiple screens’ worth of email is a common, appealing and compelling one.
The concept for anyone who works at a desk all day is fairly shocking. But isn’t it also intriguing?
As a professional organizer, I’ve seen clients facing this dilemma, with anywhere from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of emails in their in-boxes haunting and taunting them. I’m sure you can empathize and see the appeal of this seemingly reckless abandon.
There are great advantages, not the least of which is that unlike financial bankruptcy, you don’t have to wait 7 years to rebuild your online reputation. However, I can’t say I’ve ever encouraged a declaration of email bankruptcy, which seems to involve three steps: alerting everyone to your situation, apologizing, and deleting everything emailed prior to this moment.
I’ve you’re thinking of email bankruptcy, Paper Doll encourages you to consider some compromise measures. Instead of complete bankruptcy, it puts (email) debts in abeyance so that you can focus on what are likely the most pressing obligations.
Peruse the following approach, which can be taken in baby steps. Sit down at your computer, where it’s easier to manage email than on your phone:
- Sort emails by date — Just click the top of the date column, no matter what platform (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) you’re using. It will reorder your emails, just like magic, and is an entirely reversible action.
- Create an email folder called “Archive” so you can move mail (without deleting anything, assuming that’s too scary a step for you).
- Drag old mail (everything from prior to last two weeks) to the Archive folder. It’s staying within your possession, you’re just moving it to a different pile. Of course, if you’ve got 50,000 emails in your inbox, this fear (and anticipating the time it might take) could be paralyzing. If that’s too overwhelming, try carrying over just one smaller chunk at a time, starting with the oldest. If you’re moving 134 emails from July 2008, you’re going to immediately eyeball that “Jeez, I don’t need any of that” and the fear of just moving them out of your inbox will abate.
- Take a deep breath — Remember, you can still do a global search of your email account to find something specific you want. This is just to give you a little elbow (or eyeball) room.
- Now, just handle whatever is current, and you can define that any way you like. — Perhaps that’s the last 10 days or two weeks’ worth of mail in your in box; maybe it’s everything from this calendar year. Only you know what’s going to relieve you from your sense of recent email debt. But be ruthless about processing that email getting it out of your inbox. Use any of the productivity tools Paper Doll has given you. Maybe you’ll want to do a series of Pomodoros to complete the tasks associated with those emails. Maybe you’ll Zoom with an accountability party to body-double one another. And maybe you will recognize that not only can you comfortably delete the email, but you can unsubscribe from the obligation to get more. (It’s like canceling your gym membership when you’re getting billed monthly but realize you’ll never, ever go to the gym!)
- Pat yourself on the back. Having dealt with the most recent email, you should already feel lighter. From here, you have a few options. You can completely stop, or you can organize that whole backlog, knowing you can always use the search function to find any of that older stuff.
- Go to the Archived Folder. Create a sub-folder called “Archive [YEAR] & Prior” or “Before [YEAR]” or something like that.
- Move everything from the Archive folder that’s dated prior to (for example) 01/01/2025 to the sub-folder. In other words, the last year’s worth of stuff is archived, but stuff older than a year is SUPER-ARCHIVED. (If you’ve been using your email inbox as an endless “to do” inbox for years, you may have up to 10 years worth of emails in your box. Chances are good that if you missed anything prior to about 6 months ago, someone has already called to bug you about it.)
At this point, you could just stop and walk away, content that you’ve caught up on what’s truly essential. You could also delete the whole sub-folder, because how likely are you to really need something sent to you between when you got your first AOL account in 1994 and the start of last year?
But just having all your most previous year of email set aside can make it seem more manageable, because if someone does contact you about an email sent a few months back, using your search function to find one email out of a year’s worth will be easier than location one in a decade’s.
Now that things are tidier, you might decide to handle ten ancient emails a day. You could sort that archived folder by sender and look at everything your colleague who retired three years ago sent you to see if anything is vaguely useful, or mass delete everything Kohl’s has sent you since you first got a charge card there. (Seriously, Kohl’s, do you really need to send me three emails every day? I’m not going to forget I have a 40% discount, but more emails aren’t going to trick me into shopping if I don’t already need to buy it at full price. I’m strong that way!
But remember, don’t feel like you have to delete everything from your archive. Inbox:Zero is still only a snapshot in time; people will no more live forever with Inbox:Zero any more than you’ll achieve LaundryHamper:Zero by any method other than becoming a nudist. Email, to our dismay, is here to stay. But getting rid of the ancient and the excess will give you some breathing room to get your work done.
I’m Paper Doll, so why am I talking about email? Because this urge to run away, to abandon your paper debts, is just as strong as that to free yourself of email. Look around — do you have months, even years, of magazines, catalogs, old charitable requests, junk mail, greeting cards, credit card statements, and loose papers surrounding you? Wouldn’t it feel good to be free? (Wouldn’t the foundation of your house be less likely to creak under the weight of it all?) To that end, consider similar bankruptcies.
CATALOG BANKRUPTCY
It’s January. Last year’s (or last decade’s) prices don’t magically stay valid just because you’ve saved the catalogs.
- Get a recycling bin and dump every catalog into it.
- If you REALLY think you’ll order from any of these catalogs, take a minute to bookmark the URL so you can surf anytime you like.
- If you’ve spotted a turned-down page bearing a product you simply must have, tear out just that page–catalogs print their names/URLS/phone numbers on at least one side of every page. Surf the site, bookmark the product page in a bookmark folder called “pending purchases” and recycle the paper.
- Call the 800 numbers and take your name off their mailing lists.
MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER BANKRUPTCY
Do you hand-write a transcript of every episode of Oprah? (No!!!) Then you don’t need to save every issue of O Magazine! If nobody is paying you to be an archivist, stop taking that on as a responsibility. [Editor’s Note: Oprah’s magazine may be gone, but the concept still stands.]
- Read what I had to say about magazine clutter last year, here and here.
- Go back and read it again. This time, take it to heart. Owning a magazine does mean you have a slightly greater potential to gain the knowledge within, but it’s only potential unless you actual read the articles, retain the information and release the magazine back into the wild. Set them free!
- Start by making some rules to make the pain of letting go a little easier. Perhaps you can save just the fancy-pants Holiday Issue of each magazine and let go of other months?
- Recognize that old news is history; if you haven’t read Time or your local paper from last April or even last week, trust me, your life will be none the poorer.
- Affirm that there’s not that much new under the sun; if you throw out an issue emblazoned “A Flatter Belly in 30 Days,” be assured “A Tighter Tummy in 4 Weeks” will probably appear in your mailbox next week, anyway.
- Trust Paper Doll (and failing that, Antiques Roadshow) that your 6-year-old National Geographic issues and daily papers will not become collectors’ items.
- Stop renewing subscriptions to magazines you don’t read in full by the time the next issue arrives. Really. (If you miss them that much, go read them at the library where the magazine clutter gets managed by the staff.)
- Donate the magazines to doctor’s office waiting rooms (where they’ll still be decades fresher than whatever is there) and enjoy your free space.
JUNK MAIL BANKRUPTCY
- Do a reality check. Last week, there was a vigorous discussion on social media regarding how so very many of us spent our childhoods coveting Samantha’s or Tabitha’s magical twitches (from Bewitched). But we accept it’s not going to happen. Now it’s time to face another truth. You are very unlikely to win a magazine clearinghouse’s million dollar sweepstakes. Your time is too valuable to play affix-the-sticker-on-the-contest-form, and we’ve already determined you don’t need new magazine subscriptions.
- Donate or don’t, but make a decision. Too many people hold onto charitable donation requests for week, months or even years. There’s no more or less inherent value in replying to any given request from the same non-profit (except, quite possibly, letting their marketing firm make suppositions regarding which design was more popular).
- Shred convenience checks and any other “junk” mail that bears any personal information. It’s junk if you don’t want it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not appealing to dumpster-diving identity thieves.
There are dozens of ways you can free yourself by declaring a positive kind of bankruptcy. Starting today, think about what else you can jettison: tasks and obligations that don’t fit your goals so you can spend more time with your loved ones? Email newsletters you only subscribed to so you could read the bonus ebook? Delete those apps you never, ever use!
Set yourself free! Declare bankruptcy.
Lost Time, Dinner With the King of Norway and The Curse of Multiple Calendars
My dear reader, when you got back to work or school or your regular routine after the holidays, was something not quite right? Have you found that after multiple days wondering “Wait, what day is today?”, you feel like you’ve lost a few days or even a week?
What does it mean to lose time? I’m not talking about a Ray Milland-style Lost Weekend 
complete with raucous over-imbibing, but situations where, through no naughty behavior on your part, important days are completely lost.
Case in point: Last week, the brilliant Stephen Fry (as in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves & Wooster, acting partner of Hugh Laurie (House), and director of Bright Young Things) posted the following to Twitter, the addictive social networking/microblogging service:
Wouldn’t losing your birthday annoy you? And what about all those kids born on Leap Day, February 29th? It must seem entirely unfair to them to lose their birthdays three out of four years.
Around-the-globe flights and Leap Days aren’t the only ways we lose time. In case you were snoozing (and missed about 52 minutes of time) during high school Social Studies, you may not know that we all lost about a dozen days. Well, not “we” as in us, you (and you, and you) and I, because we weren’t born yet, but historically speaking, depending on where our ancestors lived, we have lost anywhere from ten to fourteen days!
Didn’t know that? Let Professor Paper Doll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.
Everybody used to use the old Julian calendar. (OK, not everybody. Not the Chinese, which is why their new year is later this month, nor those following the Hebrew calendar, which starts the year at Rosh Hashanah, in early Fall. But a whole hunk of Europe following the days of the Roman Empire…back when the European calendars were getting the most use and attention.) The Julian calendar was a lunar calendar, with dates calculated according to the phases of the moon, dating back to the start of what is known as Anno Domini or the Common Era.
HEY! WAKE UP! (This is what happened to you in Social Studies, isn’t it?) Trust me, this’ll be quick.
Suffice it to say that back in olden days, the Catholic Church used a lunar calendar to properly calculate Easter, but after some number of centuries, everything got out of whack and the vernal equinox kept getting moved around, so that Easter showed up anywhere from March 22 to April 25! (Right–you’re thinking that meant that half the time, the marshmallow Peeps were stale by then!)
They kept making tweaks, but by the 16th century, the lunar calendar and the real Moon (yeah, the one with the giant leap for mankind!) were four days out of phase. If everyone kept going on like that, it would soon be snowing on Independence Day!
So, the Catholic Church decided to correct the calendar. It took a while for them to get the whole thing moving, so if you want to read about everything they tried, feel free, but the biggie is that they solved the problem of “drift” over the 13 centuries since the Council of Nicaea by just ZAP!!! deleting ten days from the calendar.
So, if you went to bed on Thursday, October 4, 1582 on the old (Julian) calendar, when you woke up the next morning, it was Friday, October 15, 1582 on the new (Gregorian) calendar, and you’d lost 10 days! (Good luck if you forgot to TIVO Roman Idol–Results Show!) As if that weren’t freaky enough, when this whole thing began, Spain, Italy, Portugal and (what was, in the 16th and 17th centuries) the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth all joined in, but non-Catholic countries and much of the rest of the world said “Uh, no thanks!”, kind of like how parts of Indiana rejected Daylight Savings Time prior to 2006.
It took hundreds of years for all of the other countries to eventually jump on the bandwagon–as time went on, adopters had to skip eleven, then twelve, and eventually fourteen days to catch up. Greece adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923, and China in 1929. As a possession of Great Britain, the soon-to-be-known-as United States adopted it in 1752; however, Alaska still belonged to Russia and thus did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1867. This is why you’ll often read books that refer to Shakespeare’s or Washington’s dates of birth under the “old” calendar with a sniff of derision. In many cases, remote areas took so long to fall in line, that there’s no certainty as to matching up of dates.
Can you imagine if you lived near a national border or were trying to accomplish any sort of diplomacy? You invite the King of Norway to dinner, but you’re so offended when he doesn’t show up, you decide to start a war. Just as you’ve waved off your generals, King Ole shows up–almost two weeks late, and now he’s offended that you haven’t cooked or even put on the nice tablecloth and is ready to do battle! Oy, vey.
What is the point of all of this little history lesson? Having multiple calendars that aren’t in sync with one another isn’t merely disorganized. It’s disorienting and can cause upheaval in the lives of all of the little fiefdoms that surround you.
My first blog post of 2008 was about selecting and using your calendar. All of the contents of that post are still valid, so please go back and check it out if you’re not certain how to pick the right calendar for you. But there’s something else I should have said. You may have heard the adage:
The man with one watch knows what time it is.
The man with two watches is never sure.
It might be ideal, but the truth is that it’s not always feasible to have only one calendar. If you’re a busy corporate parent with your business obligations filling up your own work calendar in the office and a group-wide Google calendar with your colleagues, and you’re also trying to make sure that your spouse’s commitments and the plans of your kids (the little and not-so little ones) don’t conflict, you know that one calendar isn’t going to do it. If you’re a Paper Doll reader, you’re probably the defacto designee in charge of making sure all these potential conflicts get stopped in their tracks. So, to avoid wars with Norway (and your family and co-workers), bear in mind the following tips:
- Have a portable calendar or planner. As I stated in last year’s blog, it’s your commitment to the system, rather than the format, that matters most. However, you have to be able to verify your prior obligations before you can confer with the orthodontist, the PTA bake sale planning committee or the Vice President in charge of Norwegian distribution. That means you have to have your calendar with you, whether it’s paper or digital.
- Have an ALL-FAMILY calendar at home in a high-traffic area. Make it clear that it’s everyone’s obligation to post the dates for their soccer games and band concerts, corporate conferences and slumber parties.
- Schedule a block of SYNC TIME (that can’t be canceled, negotiated or skipped over due to national degree) each week for making sure that nothing has changed or moved. Families are busier than ever; if yours is up in arms, scheduling time for diplomacy can earn you a little dtante.
Getting and staying organized is all about creating homes (physical or temporal) for your stuff and tasks to live. While Paper Doll can’t stop the loss of leap day birthdays or time zone wormholes (yet), I hope 2009 will find you and the Norways in your life to be compatible and always on the same (calendar) page.
Oh, I almost forgot: Happy Get Organized Month!
Paper Doll Invites You To A Party: Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?
I should be mingling, but I’ve ducked into the other room to catch the end of my favorite movie:
Harry: I love how you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle right there when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you’re the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely. And it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry. I really hate you. I hate you.
“AULD LANG SYNE” continues in the background. 
Harry: What does this song mean? My whole life, I have never known what this song means. I mean, “Should old acquaintance be forgot”? Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we happen to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them?
Sally: Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that wee forgot them or something. Anyway, it’s about old friends.
This is a time to recall “auld acquaintance”, and as we approach a sparkling new year, to introduce Paper Doll readers to other great and inspiring blogs. Harry crashed the party Sally attended, so let’s think of today’s post as a New Year’s Eve party I’m hosting, and I’m introducing you to some new organizing friends with whom you can mingle.
First, pass the hors d’oeuvres trays to a few of my fellow OnlineOrganizing.com Blog Central pals. Janet Barclay writes Technology as an Organizing Tool. Between the two of us, with paper and tech, I like to think we can help you get all your information organized. Janet’s a virtual assistant who specializes in organizing the organizers (whew!) so you know she knows her stuff. Suzanne Babb is a double-delight. She has not only blogged here about getting over computer fears and Setting and Achieving Goals, her Let’s Talk Organizing blog and podcast really energize a lively but practical approach to solving organizing challenges at work and at home.
Like the decorations at this end-of-the-year party? (Go along with me here, folks. It’s a blog!) Most long-time readers know that my posts tend to favor function over form. It’s not that aesthetics aren’t important; it’s just that I was the gal still making stick figures in 10th grade art class. For a blog on creative organizing from the visual perspective, Aby Garvey‘s Creative Organizing blog is a superb place to start your new year. It’s joyous to view, and you’ll learn something, too!
No party is complete without twin planets around whom partiers circulate and conversation flows. Meet the double-trouble of Krista Colvin and Brandie Kajino. You may know these gals from their hilarious and informative radio program The O-Myth, where they break down that stick-in-the-mud reputation often applied to organizing and those of us who practice it. They’ve interviewed everyone from Oprah’s pal, Peter Walsh, to Unclutterer‘s Erin Doland.
What? You don’t know Erin? (There’s some snippy socialite at every party (though not Paper Doll‘s) who wants you to feel small if you don’t know the person it’s de rigueur to know. Well, Unclutterer is the blog that must be known! Start reading now, and catch up by reading the Sunday “year-ago” posts.)
But back to Krista and Brandie. Did you know these gals blog, too? Brandi’s blog, The Home Office Organizer, offers everything the solopreneur needs–organizing advice, money- and time-saving tips and a pixieish cheer that keeps you motivated. Krista’s Organize In Style is all about keeping it together–the job, the house, the kids, the life–and is a cool introduction to her whole SheBang program.
There’s no band* at this New Year’s Eve shindig, but if you want a little entertainment with your organizing, make time to get to know John Trosko‘s Organizing LA Blog. It’s fun, a little zany, and sometimes it feels like our industry’s own Entertainment Tonight. To wit, no matter where you reside, see what he has to say about the 2009 Los Angeles Organizing Awards.
Oh, were you wondering if John’s the lone guy out there blogging about organizing? Be assured, he’s not, and let’s wander over to the beverage area to introduce you to Scott Roewer of DeclutterYou.com. (He’s the one who shares my love of diet Coke.) From saving money to saving space, high tech to low stress, Scott’s got you covered, and while I’d never call him cartoonish, he’s been known to get animated. And we can’t forget Jim Deitzel, chief cook and blogger/bottle-washer of the fabulous Rubbermaid blog, who is so supportive of the organizing industry.
Look who just walked into the party, fashionably attired and trailed by paparazzi!! It’s Monica Ricci of Your Life. Organized. Ok, I’ll admit it–she’s the first professional organizer I ever met (all those years ago), and I’m still floored by how she wears success like a comfy sweater. Monica may be a national spokeswoman, a sought-after national speaker, a published author, a favorite radio and TV guest and so much more, but reading her blog is like going to lunch with an old friend who is so ready to dish the latest dirt to make organizing even more fun.
And who arrived with Monica? That’s none other than Lorie Marrero! Her ClutterDiet blog is a charming surprise–like that workout class you sign up for because you want to shed that holiday poundage, but you discover silly friends with whom you’d work out even if you magically had Beyonc’s waistline (and moves)? Who else but Lorie would tell you about bed spectacles so you can watch TV when you’re lying down? Who else would retrofit her office to make a treadmill desk?
Every hostess needs friends who turn us on to the best bakeries and caterers. (Seriously. Paper Doll does not cook!) Well, for knowing what’s going on…everywhere…a tip of my blogger-hostess hat to Allison Carter, who’s not only my mirror image, creatively Right Brain Organizing when I’m step-by-stepping it on the left), but she’s keeping our whole industry up to date with her Organizer U blog.
At every great soire, someone’s circulating with a camera, making sure that the revelry is captured for posterity. At this party, that’s Jeri Dansky of the eponymous Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering News, and she just leaves me awed. Proving that a picture is worth a thousand words, and obviously putting hours of research behind every themed picture-filled post, Jeri is the resource queen of professional organizing. If there’s a tangible product for storing or organizing, or a service or site to make your life easier, Jeri is the first to find it and share it with readers. Jeri’s blog rocks–don’t miss out.
I hope you get to know these great bloggers in 2009, and I haven’t even told you about… Oh, will you look at the time? How organized would I be if I missed the main event of my own party?
5!!!…4!!!…3!!!…2!!!…1!!!
Happy New Year!!!
*Readers, please write in. What would be the best band to play at a party of professional organizers and organizing bloggers? What songs would make up the play list?
Paper Doll Suggests A Holiday From Organizing
Dear Readers:
Faithful fans of Paper Doll know that as much as I love organizing paper, I try to recognize that sometimes you just have to open yourself to the whimsical notion that organizing for function isn’t always the only way to go. For example, you may recall that right in the middle of our series on solving book clutter (here and here), I talked about fabulous, if not functional ways to organize books. Well, the holidays bring a vivid example:
Yes, the book “tree” is lovely (though bibliophiles are surely blanching at the structural damage being done to the spines and pages). But what’s truly adorable about this Christmas Book-Tree is the video of the two little children who brought it to fruition. (Click to watch the video and then check out the blog. It’s OK. I’ll wait.) I’m not sure whether these tykes are Dutch blogger/designer Frank Visser’s own progeny, but their obvious delight in creation reminds us of the child in all of us and that sometimes, stepping away from organization and structure can open us to new possibilities.
There’s no paper, but we do have what appear to be paper clips, in the Hanukkah celebration on Terry Border’s amazing Bent Objects blog. For the uninitiated, those dreidel-spinning gamblers are latkes, or delicious, golden potato pancakes. The coins are called gelt and don’t let them melt–they’re chocolate!
So, let the holidays of this remarkable year end with enchantment, not stress. Get down on the floor and color (outside the lines) and make a Kwanzaa kinara with your kids 
out of cardboard and tissue paper.
Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or some combination thereof, please take time to enjoy your families and friends. Tuck away the reusable wrapping paper if you can, update your address book via Christmas card return-address labels if you are able, but give yourself a 
Get Out of Clutter Jail Free card. Don’t stress about filing away the manuals for the new gadgets, tossing the holiday cards or getting to that backlog of catalogs and holiday-themed magazines and recipes. There will be time enough for that, later on. Organizing is about making your space, time and thoughts work well for you. So declutter any errant thoughts that keep you from enjoying this time of year, and let the rosy glow of Rudolph’s nose soften your focus on your surroundings. Just enjoy.
from
Paper Doll
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