Paper Doll
Paper Doll Celebrates National Clean Off Your Desk Day
January is National Get Organized and Be Productive Month. It’s sponsored by National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO) and known lovingly to the professional organizing and productivity community as #GoMonth.
During GO Month, we celebrate how NAPO members work to improve our clients lives by helping develop functional environments, schedules, and attitudes to support productivity, good mental and physical health and well-being, and achievement of goals. Aren’t we nifty?!
But today, in addition to being almost the halfway point in Go Month, is its own special day. The second Monday in January is National Clean Off Your Desk Day.
While I’m sure you know that there are a lot of “created” holidays, I’ve always liked knowing how this event came to be. Anne Chase Moeller, daughter of the author of the original Chase’s Calendar of Events, looked at her father’s desk and was dismayed and overwhelmed by the clutter.
To be fair, there’s no documentary evidence that Mr. Chase was bothered by the condition of his desk. In general, most people, whether dealing with their desks at the office or playing the home version, aren’t particularly concerned state of their desks — at least, until they are.
Then, when a furry domesticated creature or the sticky jam-hands of a tiny human or an unexpected gust of wind lays waste to what little hierarchy and structure the desk’s owner created, concern sets in. More often, the problem is that the essential document or sticky note or not-yet-deposited check or instructions gets lost in the sedimentary layers on what was supposed to be a workspace.
Longtime readers of Paper Doll know that I value function over form, and will always place efficiency and effectiveness ahead of aesthetics. However, the desk area is one of those places where messy aesthetics are often a sign of dysfunction.
The truth is that a disorganized desk injects chaos in a person’s life even when they can find what they need, because they almost certainly can’t find it as quickly as they’d like. Disorganization anywhere can yield challenges (to put it kindly), but because our desks represent so many essential activities — financial, legal, professional, personal information management (from planning vacations to signing permission slips) — desk clutter may be the most agitating.
Today, we’re going to look at how ignored desk clutter can have a deleterious effect on physical and mental health, productivity, privacy, and reputation. We’ll also look at the different elements that go into “cleaning off” a desk.
A CLEAN DESK IS A HEALTHY DESK
Cleaning off a desk often means clearing it of whatever doesn’t belong, but it can mean, quite literally, cleaning it.
(If you’re squeamish, you might want to jump down a few paragraphs, because the facts about the germs on your desk might make you feel a bit ill.)
University of Arizona researchers under microbiologist Dr. Charles Gerba found that the average desktop harbors upwards of ten million bacteria, 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat. The average (North American) desk contains yucky levels of bacteria like Staph, E Coli, and Salmonella, (eek!) fecal matter, and viruses like influenza and yes, coronaviruses.
But it’s not just the top of your desk that’s the problem; the things on your desk, particular the items you (and others) touch the most often, that are covered in microscopic grossness. The biggest culprits? Look to your:
- Phone — They host approximately 25,000 germs per square inch. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your cell phone is off the hook. The germ party disco-ing across your phone is absolute off the hook with bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other creepy stuff!
Think about how often you touch your cell phone after touching just about anything else — elevator buttons, escalator railings, the keypad at the checkout counter, the ATM, etc. (And even if you never take your phone into the bathroom — and please don’t tell me if you do — you may be touching something that was touched by someone whose rest room hygiene is, shall we say, not optimal.
Sure, we’d rather not think of it, but be honest, when was the last time you disinfected your phone?
- Keyboard — One study at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago found that two different types of drug-resistant types of bacteria — MRSA and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) — could survive for up to 24 hours on a keyboard. That Arizona University study took samples from a cross-section of 100 American offices and found that keyboards harbored 3,295 microbes a square inch.
- Mouse — Well, you’re only touching your mouse with one hand (vs. two on the keyboard), so I guess it’s not surprising that computer mice have about half the microbes, so only about 1,676 of those bugs. Yeah, that’s still a lot. (And no, using a your laptops trackpad doesn’t get you out of the dog house (um, germ house?). Ickiness abounds.)
By the way, a computer mouse is not the only mouse that might show up in a messy desk!
Beyond whatever you do to organize your desk, be sure to make time to keep it clean:
- Take everything off of your desk and put it elsewhere, whether that’s a spare table, a rolling cart, or a clean beach towel on the floor. (Don’t put anything directly on the floor, especially in an office where people are wearing their “outside” shoes and walking around.”)
- Unplug everything. Obviously, if you’re moving a desktop, shut it down safely first.
If you’re just cleaning your mouse or keyboard (and it’s not already wireless), disconnect it from the computer. Cleaning peripherals while they’re plugged in can lead to clicking on all sorts of buttons, links, and files, creating a completely different type of desktop chaos!
- Use a can of compressed air to clean the schmutz out of crevices and tiny spaces, like between keyboard keys.
- Use disinfecting wipes or a cloth and gentle cleanser to clean everything (that doesn’t require special treatment), like your:
- desktop surface
- office telephone (see below for cleaning your cell phone)
- keyboard
- mouse
- electronic gadgets
- printer/copier keypad
- stapler
- and all of the various doodads you use at your desk. I’m not going to tell you that you have to sanitize every pen on your desk, but since the onset of COVID, I’m sure you’ve noticed that doctor’s office check-in areas have little notes delineating the “clean” pens vs. the used ones.
- Check your computer’s manual regarding preferred techniques for cleaning and de-germifying the monitor and computer, itself.
- Follow your manufacturer’s directions for de-germifying your phone. Obviously, you known not to squirt it with cleaning liquids or submerge it water, but most phone-cleaning advice includes these notes:
- Don’t use bleach products. (Duh!)
- Disconnect your phone from the charger and any accessories first.
- Remove your phone from the case and clean it separately.
- Clear dust and debris from from the phone with a swoosh of compressed air and/or a dry eyeglass cleaning cloth or similarly soft, lint-free cloth.
- Make sure your phone is completely dry for several minutes before turning it back on.
- You can also use UV phone sanitizers, which come as wands or boxes. UV light damages the nucleic acid of viruses, making them no longer infectious. The PhoneSoap 3 UV Cell Phone Sanitizer and Dual Universal Cell Phone Charger is shown below; still, I find the entire concept a little Sci-Fi-esque and still win sanitizing wipes.
- Oh, and your office coffee mug? Take it home and run it through the dishwasher. Don’t use that mangy break room sponge that’s been there since who-knows-when.
Clean your desk for Clean Off Your Desk Day, but don’t only clean these spaces once a year. To keep germs at bay, try to clean your high-touch areas on your desk weekly (and after anyone uses your computer), and schedule time on your calendar to deep clean often, especially during flu season.
Pro-tip: don’t eat at your desk. Not only does it contribute to the germs in your workspace, but as I explained in Toxic Productivity In the Workplace and What Comes Next, working through lunch and not taking a “brain break” is bad for your mental health. Speaking of mental health…
CLEANING OFF YOUR DESK CAN SAVE YOUR SANITY
Clutter in our workspaces is similar to plaque in our arteries. It slowly builds up without us realizing anything is wrong until the flow (of blood, in our arteries; of clarity of thought, at our desks) is further and further restricted.
We may not immediately perceive it, but clutter distracts us from our priorities. It’s already hard enough to pay bills, understand field trip notices, or plan business tasks without sensory clutter (noisy cubicle mates, Slack and text notifications, ringing phones, and human interruptions) obscuring our focus.
But tangible clutter on and around our desks (whether at work or at home) hides our priorities under sedimentary rock-like layers. The oldest stuff is at the bottom, the newest is at the top; but priorities, which are date-of-origin agnostic are ignored. What’s important is almost always hidden, so whatever is on top of the pile, no matter the priority, grabs our attention.
Every time you test three pens before you find one that does have ink and doesn’t leave blobs all across the page, your patience wears just a little thinner. Each time you must flip through every sticky note pasted to your monitor or floating around your desk to find a password so you can meet a deadline, your blood pressure increases incrementally. And just as with too much plaque in an artery, when there’s too much clutter obscuring your focus, there will come a point where the blockage completely halts all flow!
To overcome overwhelm, read my classic article, If You’re Drowning In Paper Build A Raft and then set phone or calendar alarms to remind you to periodically:
- File away reference information (digitally, like in Dropbox or Evernote, or tangibly, a file box or cabinet) and tuck action paper work in tickler file or in folders in a file riser.
- Clear your desk and put away projects you’ve completed
- Digitize as much of your loose paper information as possible
Of course, avoiding distractions that make you feel like you’re going to pop isn’t the only way to keep your desk time cheery.
Invest in office supplies that brighten your mood (like colorful folders or attractive computer risers) to incline you to stick with your organizing rituals. For examples, check out:
- Paper Doll Explores the Best of Desktop File Boxes
- Organize Your Desktop with Your Perfect Desk Pad
- Cool and Colorful Desktop Solutions to Organize Your Workspace
You can also add a few fun desk accessories, but again, the more you have on your desk, the easier it is for clutter to build up. My favorite desk accessory is my cell phone stand (purple, to match my iMac). It has the added bonus that when I’m using it to watch something on my phone, I’m not holding my phone in a death grip.
PICK FUNCTION OVER FORM TO KEEP YOUR DESK CLEAN AND CLEAR
When you keep your desk clear of crud, and organize what you keep on your desk, you’re more likely to be able to focus on essential tasks.
To start with the clearing aspect of cleaning off your desk, ask yourself two vital questions:
1) What do you have on your desk that you don’t need or want (and where should it go)?
Take a moment to look around your desk. (Go ahead. We’ll wait.) What’s on your desk that really doesn’t belong? What’s crowding you out of your space?
If it’s your desk at home, are there toys on your desk? Your desk is an extension of your brain. How can your brain focus on preparing for a client meaning if Mister Fluffy is sitting in the middle of your workspace?
Are there meds that you don’t want to forget to take? Be honest — are they reminding you to take them or have the bottles just become part of the atmosphere? Move them to the kitchen counter, next to the coffee maker, where you’re sure to notice them.
Are there books you intend to read but which have sat untouched for weeks? Months? If you really want to read, move your TBR (To Be Read) pile to a nearby shelf and schedule a 15-minute block every morning on your calendar. Start your day reading and you’ll make at least that much progress. Instead of hoping to find time in your schedule, make time to read (or learn a new language or write thank you notes).
Take the aspirational material off your desk but put your aspirations on your calendar.
Similarly, put stop piling your action paperwork on the desk. Put items in the right day slots in your tickler file so they’ll be ready when the assigned time arrives. For more on using a tickler file to organize your time and desk space, check out my classic ebook, Tickle Yourself Organized.
Don’t put things down; put them away! This is especially apt in the small, sometimes cramped confines of your desk. As the various posts above explain, you need to define specific homes for reference and research files in railed filing drawers/cabinets or shelved binders.
For organizing the rest of the loose papers on your desk, avail yourself of my guidance on developing a family filing system:
- Paper Doll Shares 12 Kinds of Paper To Declutter Now
- Reference Files Master Class (Part 1) — The Essentials of Paper Filing
- Reference Files Master Class (Part 2) — Financial and Legal Papers
- Reference Files Master Class (Part 3) — Medical Papers
- Reference Files Master Class (Part 4) — Household and Personal Papers
Don’t forget about the non-paper items on your desk.
How many pens and pencils do you have? Is your mug filled with pencils you never use (either because they’re stubby and dull or you’re just not a pencil pusher — I mean, user)? Are there thirty pens in various colors and thicknesses, but you only use a black Sharpie fine pen or a sparkly blue gel roller-ball?
Stop collecting crummy ballpoint pens from hotels, conference centers, and the bank. (Did you know those cheapie pens are purposely only partially filled with ink because they know people will take them and never use them?)
And even though we’re working on clearing your desk, there’s another important question to ask.
2) What might you want on your desk that you don’t actually have?
- Do you get up from your desk frequently to find information you want at your fingertips without Googling (or when your WiFi is out)? Get a bright three-ring binder and fill sheet protectors with essential info like emergency contacts or the configuration data for your wireless router. Create a printed cheat sheet for making those “funny” symbols for letters to your international clients and emoji to your friends. (Do you do international commerce? Make sure you know your $ from your €.)
- Are you constantly unplugging peripherals because you don’t have enough places to plug in your external hard drive, disk drive, or other noodle-y USB thingies? Get a charging hub to neatly corral everything.
- Store action items and office supplies based on my Rule of Proximity & Utility. In other words, the more often you use something (or should be using it), the closer it should be to you in the “prime real estate” of your desk.
But c’mon, you don’t need a dozen stacks of Post-It pads on the surface of your desk. Stage those office supplies in a distant drawer or cabinet where you can go “shopping” as needed.
DON’T BE INSECURE — CLEAN YOUR DESK TO PRESERVE PRIVACY & SECURITY
Your desk is clear of germs? Check!
You’ve created categories for your papers and found the right supplies and tools to tuck away what you don’t need on top of your desk? Yay!
Once you’ve gotten the supplies and gadgets back to your desk or tucked away and the files (more or less) sorted into their action, reference, or archived categories, really scrutinize the teeny pieces of paper that adorn your cubicle walls, filing cabinet sides, bulletin boards, and the other surfaces.
As noted, you’ll save your sanity by gathering all those loose notes and stickies and transferring that information to wherever it belongs, whether in digital or (organized) analog form.
But there’s a subset of loose pieces of paper that are particularly dangerous to your security. How long have those Post-Its bearing passwords been affixed to the monitor for all (from coworkers to cleaning staff) to see?
Who else wanders by your office? Customers, vendors, consultants? Friends and family of other employees, maintenance staff and colleagues? Gladys Kravitz?
Even in a home office, where only the UPS guy, babysitter and pizza delivery lady see your desk, it’s crucial to protect sensitive data from disclosure — whether that’s your Social Security number and bank data, clients’ proprietary information, or personnel files.
The more clutter in your desktop environment, the harder it is to know when something is missing or if prying eyes have settled on them, so it’s time to stop keeping your passwords on or around your desk. Optimally, you should pick a digital password manager, but even using a password notebook (that you keep tucked or locked away when you’re not at your desk) is better than nothing.
Get out of the habit of posting sensitive information on your bulletin board, stuck to your desktop, or on the periphery of your computer monitor! It’s tempting to scribble your new password on a sticky note and put it where you’ll see it, but it’s only convenient until the first time something goes awry.
KEEP YOUR DESK — AND YOUR REPUTATION — CLEAN
At work, do clients and colleagues sometimes seem reluctant to leave files or important documents with you?
Are family members dubious about leaving you documents to sign or checks to deposit?
The problem may be your desk.
Whether or not the impression is accurate, people commonly assume a cluttered desk represents a cluttered mind.
Yes, I know Albert Einstein said, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
And certainly his was a great mind. But this was what Einstein’s desk at Princeton looked like on the day he died in 1955.
If you aren’t Einstein, will you be given the benefit of the doubt, particularly at work? (And let’s just imagine how much more Einstein might have accomplished if he didn’t have to waste any time digging for the reference he wanted?)
While it’s important to be physically and mentally healthy and improve functional productivity and security, preserving your reputation by keeping your desk clear of clutter and your essentials accessible will better help you achieve your goals. (I mean, assuming your goals include being promoted, being appreciated, and doing a great job.)
It’s not just cleanliness and functional tidiness that impacts the judgment of others. Too many personal items on your desk can adversely affect your professional image. If more than one in five items on your desk are personal, like photos, toys and stuffed animals, banners, or goofy mugs, those in authority (or in a position to report to authority) might doubt your commitment or work ethic. A University of Michigan study found that “An extremely messy personal space seems to lead people to believe the owner of that space is more neurotic and less agreeable.”
And let’s face it, even if your desk is in a home office and there’s no promotion beyond Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, Vice President for Financial Affairs and Co-Chair of Family Strategizing, do you need the sub-conscious distraction and lost space due to “desk trinkets” that you probably no longer use or even actually notice?
For National Clean Off Your Desk Day, give your desk a refresh. If you need some motivation, Zoom or Facetime with a friend or pair up with your work (or actual) spouse. Play some motivating music (if it won’t disturb your colleagues or housemate), set a pomodoro timer, and see how much you can accomplish before Beyoncé or Taylor finish cheering you on.
Clean the schmutz, eject what doesn’t belong (and figure out whether to toss it or file it away), and only keep things on your desk that help you be productive or make you happy to be at your desk.
And then to celebrate your achievement (and the observance of Clean Off Your Desk Day), eat somewhere other than your desk!
What one thing will you remove from your desktop today?
Paper Doll Post:
How to Use Cathedral Thinking and Intentional Words to Organize Your Year
We’re not quite a week into the year. And yet, if you had resolutions, you may have already broken them. Vowed to eat healthy, but that boozy New Year’s Day brunch blew that plan out of the water? Planned to exercise daily, but those two days back at work wore you out, so you slept in instead of going to the gym this weekend?
You aren’t alone. In fact, the second Friday in January is known as Quitter’s Day because so many people have already tossed their resolutions by that day. Research by Baylor College of Medicine found that 88% of people give up their New Year’s Resolutions by the end of January; a large percentage of the remainder part ways with their resolutions before the end of April.
WHY DON’T NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS WORK (FOR MOST PEOPLE)?
It’s not that resolutions can’t work, but that people generally go about them in the wrong way.
Unrealistic Expectations
It’s cute when three-year-olds tell you they’re going to be princesses, basketball stars, or wizards. But if you’re a grownup and you “resolve” that you’re going to change who you are in some massive way, your ambitious goals may get in the way of reality.
If you set an aspirational goal that’s so ambitious that you can’t possible achieve it, you’re guaranteeing that you’ll be discouraged each time you hit a setback or your progress is glacial.
Think about what I wrote in Paper Doll Explains Aspirational vs. Inspirational Clutter. Just as when you fill your space with tangible aspirational clutter, filling your head with an aspiration to achieve something lofty without the any undergirding infrastructure guarantees disillusionment and falling short.
Black-and-White Thinking
It’s common to approach goal-setting with an all-or-nothing mentality.
“Either I will publish a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel this year (even though I haven’t written anything since college)!” or “I’m going to keep this house perfectly organized every day from now on (even though I haven’t seen my keys in three weeks)!” leads people to give up when they hit the first bump in the road, so they stop writing or putting things away.
Too often, people craft their resolutions as, “I’m going to completely change how I behave” and that means that the minute they revert to their innate habits, they declare a loss. (A hot fudge sundae doesn’t mean your diet is dead and buried; tomorrow, have a salad.)
We don’t need a new year, or a new month, or even a new day to continue on with our goals. As I talked about in Organizing A Fresh Start: Catalysts for Success, we can always find new opportunities to re-set.
Shame-based Motivation
- Are you a carrot or stick person? Are you motivated to win something for the glory or by fear of not achieving?
- Are you more likely to go after a goal because it’s something you truly desire, or because you’ve been guilted into it?
- Do you want to achieve something because it’s your dream, or because you’ve been conditioned through social pressure (or from your mother-in-law or your work frenemy) to do something?
If you only set a goal because someone makes you feel bad about who you are now (whether in terms of your shape, your status, or your accolades), that extrinsic motivation probably isn’t going to have staying power to get you out of bed to run on a rainy morning or to get your butt on the piano bench to practice scales.
If you’re focused on something negative and are shamed (or shaming yourself) into changing who you are, that self-criticism is going to prevent you from making any sustainable change.
And whenever we don’t meet our resolutions, that above-mentioned black-and-white thinking can lead to low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, and poor mental health.
Lack of Strategic Planning
If you rang out the old year by resolving to “lose weight in 2025” or even to “lose 25 pounds in 2025,” you were resolving to magically achieve something. You can’t really “do” a resolution.
This is why the concept of SMART goals is so popular, because they promise that if you sit down and define your goals by making them specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time sensitive, and strategize how you’ll take action, when, and how often, and are clear on your purpose, you’ll stand a better chance. I’ve written about that often, and back in 2014 in Achieve Your Goals: Modern Truths Behind the Urban Legend, I spelled out my alternative steps to really making your goals come alive.
Merely stating your resolution without spelling out the strategies and actionable tactics is a recipe for a pretty weak soup of achievement.
For more on the problematic nature of New Year’s resolutions, read:
- The Psychology Behind Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail (VeryWellMind.com)
- New Year’s resolutions often don’t last. Here’s why they fail and how to keep them, according to an expert. (CBS)
- Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work (And What You Can Do Instead!) (Forbes)
Instead, Make Real Change Through Intentions and Habits
Set positive intentions — When you do create goals, focus on whatever you want to achieve because the goal uplifts you, not because you’re trying to avoid something. (Will you be delighted, or will you only be avoiding a negative result? Unless you’re motivated by the stick, find the carrot…or the cookie.)
Have a plan, not a dream — Identify any obstacles you’ve faced in the past anticipate what may arise in the future so you can develop strategies to overcome them.
Set small, achievable objectives — You’re not going to put away everything the minute you are done with it, but you can set a timer for ten minutes before your lunch break to file away everything that’s piled up on your desk during the morning. Keep breaking down large aspects of change into ever-smaller, more manageable tasks.
In fact, if you really want to change your behaviors, I suggest reading (or re-reading) James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
Clear’s book is one of the most approachable guides to making small behavioral changes so that you can replicated them and build on them to achieve what you want.
Treat yourself with kindness — Don’t beat yourself up over backsliding; use it as an opportunity to investigate what’s tripping you up and look for creative solutions. The goal is to catch yourself winning.
Acknowledge that setbacks happen to everyone; focus on progress, not perfection. (Perfection is boring! Figuring out why you always throw your coat on a chair instead of hanging it up or always procrastinate about refilling prescriptions gives you opportunities to win!)
Seek — and accept — support! — There’s a reason people say it takes a village and that no man is an island. Humans are social animals; we’re not meant to do it all ourselves. Whether you seek the support of family or friends, delegate lesser tasks to staffers so you can focus on improving your unique skills, or work with a counselor, therapist, or professional organizer who can provide accountability and training, don’t feel like you have to go it alone.
GO LONG; MAKE A CHANGE
I’m just not a fan of resolutions. I am far more enamored of changing habits. If resolutions work for you and help you make a fresh start, go for it. But if you struggle with resolutions, it’s OK. There are better ways to introduce change in your life.
Longtime Paper Doll readers know that I’m a big fan of using words to create a positive mindset. Once I have a vision for what I want my life (or my year) to look like, I can build a theme and see if each habit or action dovetails or departs from that theme. And we’re going to look at that in a moment. But I’ve recently been introduced two additional concepts for guiding your thoughts and actions.
Cathedral Thinking
Greta Thunberg has been quoted as saying, “Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.”
Oooh, cathedral thinking! I’m picturing time-lapse video of a cathedral being built from the foundation upward as the people and the city around the area change and grow over decades and centuries.
I was unfamiliar with the term “cathedral thinking” before I heard Thunberg’s quote, and did some research. Officially, cathedral thinking is a mindset focused on long-term planning and thinking about the future rather than the present. Originating in medieval Europe, the concept developed from the fact that builders of grand cathedral began projects they knew would not reach fruition in their lifetimes; they were thinking generationally.
Duomo di Orvieto (Orvieto Cathedral) Umbria, Italy @2018 Julie Bestry
Cathedral thinking is a way to view the problems we face as challenges requiring effort — sometimes collective effort by that village — and an investment of time, and perhaps money, over the long haul. When you’re talking about building literal cathedrals, that long-term planning, investment in the future prioritization of sustainability can create a tangible monument to the work you’ve put in.
But ever since I heard Thunberg’s quote, I’ve been thinking about how cathedral thinking applies to building our future selves. Maybe our initial goals are short-term: to get our homes or offices organized, or to learn how to say no to obligations that don’t fulfill us, to go to the gym, or start eating healthy.
But none of these goals exist in a vacuum. We don’t want to lose weight because the number on the scale is somehow meaningful. We’re not decluttering (merely) so that our homes look more orderly. We’re not culling the energy vampire tasks from our schedules so we’ll have a more balanced work-life schedule. Those are the interim benchmarks; those are the foundations and scaffolding and various levels of the cathedral of our individual selves.
But our true cathedrals are who and what these habits will help us become. Better eating, exercise, self-care, stress-reduction, and organized spaces mean that we will be happier, healthier, and alive and vital for longer so that we can be with the people we love, doing the things we care about.
Anyone doing a reality check knows we don’t write books to become rich; almost no published authors are making that kind of bank; nor are artists. Instead, it’s about legacy.
James Clear suggests that we can change our habits by aligning them with our identity. “I am the kind of person who eats five servings of vegetables a day” or “I am the kind of person who hangs up her clothes” may not be true, yet, but it’s tying acts to the self-image to which one aspires.
As long as that identity isn’t so aspirational as to seem out of reach, it can override the tendency we all have to blow off our goals when we just aren’t feeling it; when we just don’t wanna.
Your aspirational goals are part of your legacy, and your legacy is going to take a lifetime to build. You are a cathedral. Start by laying the foundation, and keep the future generations (that is, iterations) of your identity moving forward.
Make a Change
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
We all struggle. Change is scary. Fear of failure, fear of success, and annoyance (and avoidance of annoyance) keep us stuck, year after year.
Recently, I was thinking about how, ever since the start of the pandemic, I’ve felt stuck. I work hard to stay safe, in terms of my health. I still wear a mask in indoor public settings and avoid crowds. But in the last six weeks, I’ve still had health issues; first, as I reported last month, I had a rough bout of vertigo; then mid-December, I had a cold (and it was, though lingering, just a cold). I petulantly resented that I’ve taken all of these precautions, have missed out on a lot of the joys of life in these years since 2020, and still got sick.
We all take precautions to protect ourselves professionally or personally, to avoid pain (the stick) but that often means we never get the carrot or the cookie. Eventually, as I wrote about in Paper Doll Says: Don’t Get Stuck in a Rut — Take Big Leaps, we have to get out of our comfort zones.
This was in my head when I had a conversation last week with the always-fabulous Deb Lee, productivity consultant, connector-of-humans, and amazing friend. Deb was talking about marketing and entrepreneurship expert Amy Porterfield, and how she often advises people to Do Something Different. You can listen to Amy’s podcast, #497: Do Something Different: A Method For Getting Unstuck, for a sense of how this philosophy, of doing something in a different way, can shake you out of your rut, blow out the cobwebs, and bring new ideas and new opportunities.
And it wasn’t just Deb quoting Amy. Within a day, my colleague and the best darned Evernote Expert you could want to know (and I’m saying that as someone who has been an Evernote Certified Expert for the past decade), Stacey Harmon of Harmon Enterprises, echoed the same idea. In her newsletter, she talked about how she chooses a word/concept of the year, and for this year, Stacey wrote,
“For 2025, I’ve chosen “Do things differently. Get different results.”
(In her newsletter, she talks about how each year, she creates a custom Evernote Home cover image containing her word or phrase of the year, overlying a photo that’s attractive to her and is in alignment with her goal. Read more about how Stacey tracks her word/phrase of the year in Evernote.)
Although hers isn’t my phrase for 2025, I’m borrowing the inspiration to remind myself to spread my wings a bit more and embrace a larger life.
USE YOUR WORDS TO ORGANIZE THE LIFE YOU WANT
Most years, I blog about the advantage of selecting a word or phrase of the year to create your mindset. While resolutions state where you want to end up and goals allow you to spell out the habits that can get you there, words or mottos for the year are different.
Scrabble Tile Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Whether you pick a word or phrase or song doesn’t matter. Rather, all formats of these words allow to set your intentions for where you want to focus your energy for the coming year in a way that uplifts and expands instead of setting restrictions and boundaries.
Last year, in Toss Old Socks, Pack Away 2023, and Adjust Your Attitude for 2024, I talked about my approach to each new year.
In particular, I went deep and wide into the concept of the personal review, a method for reflecting on the year that’s ended to get a sense of what is really meaningful to you (in categories like health, finances, professional development, business, relationships, personal growth, and community) for guiding your approach to the new year.
I recommended the amazing Year Compass, for doing your annual review and for developing your hopes, dreams, goals, and plans for the coming year.
And I’d picked the word UPGRADE as my guiding word of 2024, but explained that it was battling it out with PRONOIA. I wrote:
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it. Honestly, the first time I heard the word, I assumed it was made up. It’s opposite of paranoia; a person experiencing pronoia believes that the world around them conspires to do them good. Obviously, taken to extremes, it might seem like psychological or spiritual irrationality.
But Buddist principles haven’t been working for me, I’m still trying to get a handle on the Stoics I talked about in Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset. I feel the pull of a bigger change in my life, and I think “pronoia” dovetails with the idea of a life upgrade.
Thus, I keep coming back to the Carly Pearl song in which I first heard the word “pronoia.”
This year, I’ve decided to upgrade the word “pronoia” to be my personal life motto. The concept that the world conspires in your favor is just too inspiring to apply to only one year.
Once you do your personal review, you’ll know what you want to accomplish this year, and more importantly, why. Maintain the motivation and energy of your “why” with a word or phrase that reflects the overall concept you want your year to engender. It’s not about losing weight, or maybe even health, but a word that reflects beyond the literal to the the larger idea of how you want to feel. Maybe buoyant or lighthearted or delighted?
Consider:
- a word of the year
- multiple words (like a trio of words) of the year
- a quote or motto or mantra of the year
- a song of the year (or a song title, or a lyric)
Whatever you select is your personal theme for the coming year. Whatever you want to remember about your goals and your attitude is what this word or phrase or mantra will reflect.
But don’t just leave your word sitting there on a notepad. Your goal is the best product or service — it’s the business of you. Use your (organized) space to keep your attention on your intention for the year, the building of your personal cathedral.
Advertise your theme word(s) anywhere or everywhere it’ll catch your attention. Don’t let it fade into the woodwork!
Promote your theme to yourself wherever you need a little push to live in accordance with the values you’re setting for yourself. Display it:
- on a sticky note on the fridge or your bathroom mirror
- on a bookmark you’ll see each time you open or close whatever book you’re reading
- on a both sides of the door leading to and from your garage, so you’ll be reminded of it when coming and going
- on one of those fun little felt word board with changeable letters placed so you see it from your desk chair or wherever you spend the most time
- on the lid or door of the washing machine, to remind you that those “adulting” tasks deserve appreciation
- on the door to your closet so you’ll be reminded to dress and act in accordance with your theme
- as the title of a vision board, along with images reflecting the meaning of your motivating words, phrases, and songs.
- on the lock screen of your phone
- as the desktop graphic of your computer
- on whatever software allows you to customize your home screen (like Stacey’s advice for Evernote Home)
Don’t just engage your visual sense. Add an auditory component:
- Change your wakeup alarm on your phone to your theme song.
- Record yourself speaking your word or mantra (or have a loved one do it) and use the sound file as an alarm to remind you periodically at a point in the day when your inspiration is likely to flag.
- Recite your word or phrase every night before you go to sleep and upon waking. Make it a mantra.
Whatever you pick should soothe and motivate, providing you with clearer sense of the vision you want your actions to reflect. Picture it on a banner as you cross the finish line, or carved into the marble over the doorway of your personal cathedral.
Find Your Inspiration
You don’t have to rush to find your word or phrase. A year is 365 days and we’re only six days in. And if you find that the word your pick is ill-fitting, like a jacket that’s too tight in the shoulders, you can change it.
To get you started, peruse:
Choose a One-Word Theme: We Review Our 2024 Themes and Reveal Our 2025 Themes (Happier Podcast with Gretchen Rubin)
One Word Themes for 2025 (Gretchen Rubin)
How To Choose A Word Of The Year (Elizabeth Rider)
New Year Intention (Jonda Beattie)
246 Word of the Year Ideas for a Better 2025 (GoodGoodGood.co)
2025 Word of the Year Ideas (Morgan Harper Nichols has 60 great, often unexpected words)
2025 Word of the Year (and 100 ideas for yours) (Elizabeth McKnight)
Paper Doll’s Words of Intention
I’ll be honest — I’m not ready for 2025. I usually use the last two weeks of the year to do my annual review and find the right word or phrase for the coming year. But, as mentioned, I had the creeping crud from the week before Christmas until close to the new year, and haven’t yet found my word. I’m leaning toward ENGAGE.
I liked having a word and a song last year, and keep hearing Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days Are Over running through my head, but suspect it’s one of those songs where I’m not sure that the lyrics mean what I think they mean. I’ve noticed that Natasha Beddingfield’s 2004 hit, Unwritten, is playing everywhere lately, and feel like it’s speaking to cautious, perfectionist me:
I break tradition
Sometimes my tries are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes
But I can’t live that way
Songwriters: Danielle A. Brisebois / Natasha Anne Bedingfield / Wayne Steven Jr Rodrigues
Unwritten lyrics ©2004 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Whatever I choose, I’m considering the advice of Deb and Stacey, and remembering the words of essayist and novelist Susan Sontag, in her Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963, where she emphasized courageously taking leaps and embracing change:
“I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it.”
Do you have a word, phrase, motto, or song of the year to support your 2025 mindset?
Paper Doll Post:
Use the Zeigarnik Effect to Finish Off Your Unfinished Tasks
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
~ William James
Yes, I know I’ve used this quote here before, but it’s an important one, especially at this time of the year.
As I type this post, there’s barely more than a week left in 2024. As we look toward 2025, I can’t help thinking about what I didn’t quite finish this year. (Yes, even professional organizers fall short of our sometimes-lofty goals.)
THE ZEIGARNIK EFFECT: WAITERS AND THE CUSTOMERS WHO HAVEN’T PAID
Tasks left un-done scratch at the brain. There’s even a name for it — the Zeigarnik Effect.
As the theory of this phenomenon goes, people remember tasks that are unfinished or interrupted better than the ones they complete. Initially, psychologist Kurt Lewin recognized that waiters had clearer recollections of the orders of patrons who hadn’t yet paid for their orders. Once everyone paid, the waiters basically wiped their brains and couldn’t recall the details of the orders anymore.
This is why I am always so dubious of Law & Order episodes when the police track down a suspect by credit card order to pump the bartender or waiter for details. Invariably, although paid (and ostensibly tipped), servers seem to still remember all the details. Yet somehow these Manhattan waiters remember not only the patrons’ orders but what their dates looked like and the basics of the conversations they were having? Is the world of Dick Wolf a Zeigarnik-free zone?
But I digress.
The central concept of the Zeigarnik Effect is that once you start a task, there’s a “task-specific tension” created in the brain which keeps the task active. Basically, when you start something but don’t finish it, it’s like it’s still on the burner on the stove, and (assuming you’re not distracted by other things you’ve started), that tension pushes you to work on the task. Get interrupted again? The tension persists.
Once you actually do finish the work, the tension is relieved. Keeping that continuous tension up — having the task pop to the top of your To-Do list, putting a sticky note on your steering wheel, etc. — keeps the essentials of the task accessible to the part of your brain that says, “Damn, I really have to work on that!”
(Usually, men get the credit for women’s work, but in a striking rarity, the effect is named not for Lewin, but for Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who continued the line of research of her friend and mentor, Lewin.)
The Zeigarnik Effect keeps unfinished tasks sticky in the brain and work in several ways to get you across the finish line. Unfinished tasks can prompt you to finish them by acting on your brain in the following capacities. They:
- Serve as Mental Reminders — You naturally keep remembering things you started but haven’t finished doing. The unfinished tasks stay top-of-mind, prompting your brain to say, “Hey, you got interrupted (or got bored and wandered away) but this thing is still here! Don’t forget about it!”
Wooden Brown Scrabble Tiles Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels
- Boost Motivation — The next time you curse your brain for reminding you of an unfinished tasks, give yourself a little slack. This mental tension can increase your drive and magnify your focus to resolve those icky, lingering tasks. Sometimes, that motivation may just be, “Dang, I don’t want to be reminded of this again!” but that’s motivation in its own right.
- Build Momentum — My clients hear me say this all the time, but “Small victories breed success.” Even — and sometimes especially — when you take action on the tiniest of unfinished tasks, it can create a domino effect. Have you ever noticed that when you knock something off your list, particularly something that’s been hanging out there a little too long, it gives you the push to tackle more and larger tasks?
- Give You the Satisfaction of Closure — That “whoohoo!” you get from finishing something? It can make you feel like a bit of a superhero. It can work magic. That relief you get when something is no longer hanging over you frees up mental energy so you can set (and tackle) new goals.
Sidebar on the Zeigarnik Effect and ADHD
Of course, the Zeigarnik Effect is just a typical psychological phenomenon and may not hold up under all circumstances. For example, if you’re undergoing a lot of stress, whether at work, or due to illness, or an upheaval in your relationship, an unfinished task that has nothing tangible or digital bringing your attention back to it may just, in effect, escape your brain and fall out of your ears.
When I started to write this post, I wondered whether anyone had researched the relationship between the Zeigarnik Effect and the experiences of individuals with ADHD. They have, but it turns out some of my initial instincts were wrong.
Since the Zeigarnik Effect says that that people remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones, I figured that people with ADHD might have so many simultaneous thoughts and unfinished tasks that newer unfinished tasks would push older ones off the burner. Nope. Or at least, not always.
Actually, the research shows that there’s sometimes a heightened sense of unfinished task recall in individuals with ADHD. Even with all my professional work with organizing clients who have ADHD, I still figured they’d forget more of their unfinished tasks. In actuality, the research shows that the brains of people with ADHD often keep unfinished tasks active, which has just as problematic an effect as forgetting — it increases mental clutter.
So, it’s a good news/bad news situation. The Zeigarnik Effect isn’t making people with ADHD forget their not-yet-completed tasks; it’s just filling their brains with a lot of blinking lights about those tasks. And that “mental tension” that’s supposed to be good for remembering creates real, human tension (that is, stress), that hurts productivity. Ouch.
Luckily, research also indicates that planning is a particularly effective mitigation strategy for reducing the stressful aspects of the “mental tension” of the Zeigarnik Effect. According to Harnessing Two Horsemen of Productivity Havoc, the kind of detailed planning we talk about here at Paper Doll HQ all the time really helps.
Florida State University researchers found that when people with ADHD were allowed to create their own super-specific plans for completing their unfinished projects, the distracting Zeigarnik-esque thoughts went poof! As we talk about here all the time, planning is powerful; it frees up your mental resources and quiets all those Zeigarnik beeps and boops in your brain reminding you of what needs to get done.
But there’s a hitch. I suspect it works for people for ADHD much like it works for those of us without ADHD (especially when we’re overwhelmed), which goes back to why we’ve got unfinished business at the end of the year.
The Zeigarnik Effect has our brains full of stuff we have yet to finish. So we look at when the thing has to be completed, and think, “Aha, I’ll make a plan to attack it.” The problem is that, too often, we either see no deadline (so we don’t feel any pressure to complete a task) or we see a deadline far on the horizon — perhaps several weeks out — and our brain convinces us that it’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, we have plenty of time, and we procrastinate. Oops.
So, be sure to embrace the advice in Paper Doll On Understanding and Conquering Procrastination when planning your attack on whatever is incomplete.
For what it’s worth, I wasn’t entirely wrong about ADHD and forgetting. In one study on the impact on prospective memory — that is, the ability to remember to perform an intended action in the future — researchers looked at activity-based prospective memory in people with ADHD found that the Zeigarnik Effect can influence how unfinished tasks or “intentions” remain active in memory.
Their findings suggests that the ADHD brain sometimes puts uncompleted tasks in a state of “suspended activation,” which can adversely impact task recall and completion upon waking up. (This points to the idea that if your unfinished task is going to remain unfinished overnight, you’re going to need more support than if you just have to remember to take the pot off the stove in the next five minutes.)
For what it’s worth, whether you have ADHD or not, research shows that intentionally starting a task, even for the briefest bit of time, can increase the likelihood of returning to the task again and completing it.
ZEIGARNIK YOURSELF INTO FINISHING THE LINGERING TASKS
We can’t finish everything.
Finish Line Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU
I know, that’s a shocking comment on someone who comes here each week to tell you how to organize and be productive, but it’s the truth. It’s why I don’t believe in Inbox: Zero, or Laundry Basket: Zero, or any other Task:Zero mentality.
Seriously, the email, like the laundry, keeps coming. Unless your family members are all about to become nudists, the laundry will always be piling up, and while you can try to keep up with it, like all those inbound emails, when it comes down to it, email and laundry aren’t why you are here on this planet.
Finish what you can, and what you must, and get on living your life. The goal is to have more time to focus on what matters most to you, not to have the emptiest in-boxes.
As we head into the final week of the year, I encourage you to finish up as many of the small, hanging-on tasks you can, just so you can go into the new year unencumbered and more revved up for the tasks and projects about which you feel passionate.
- Make a list — Santa isn’t the only one who is busy making lists and checking them twice. Grab a pad of paper or your phone (because you’ll want to be mobile) and walk around your house (and if applicable, your office) and make a list of all of your unfinished tasks and projects. The Zeigarnik Effect means that a bunch of these tasks are in your brain already, or at the periphery of your focused thought, but some tasks may have edged others off the front burners. Write them all down.
- Delete what doesn’t matter anymore — I know, this feels like failure. But it’s not. Before you can really prioritize what matters, you have to let go of the things that really don’t matter anymore. It doesn’t mean those things never mattered (though they might not have), just that dragging them around with you is doing yourself a disservice.
If it’s been three months since your friend’s birthday, give up the belief that you’re going to time-travel back and send her the perfect card. Forgive yourself (as she’d forgive you) and send her a New Year’s card with all the good gossip about why your life has you so frazzled. You remembered her birthday is September 20th. You just forgot that September 20th was September 20th when September 20th came around.
If there was a grant you were going to apply for, but the deadline has passed, or a work opportunity that you never quite got things together to pursue, forgive yourself and move on. The universe will present new opportunities. Not all unfinished tasks have to be finished. Focus on the ones that shine a light on what fits your values and goals in your life and at work.
- Break down the list into smaller component pieces. — You’ve heard this before: projects are not tasks. You can’t DO a project. Divide every item on your list into small, actionable tasks. This will reduce your sense of overwhelm, making it easier to start…and then to finish.
- Identify your priorities — Let’s face it, some lingering tasks are more vital than others, and the amount of time they take to accomplish isn’t always the key factor.
There are big things you may not have finished. There are small ones, too. Spend one 25-minute Pomodoro to see how they rank. It’s OK to revise your priorities. You don’t have to create a list of 72 ranked items, but get a highlighter and pick out what will give you the most bang for your buck.
If you started it and still value it, see the next bullet. If you didn’t tackle it at all but want to keep it on your list, dig a little deeper and define what the obstacles have been so you can tackle the tasks with awareness.
What are the most important ones to start so you can finish? Do those first!
- Commit to a time and place for taking action — Someday is not a day on the calendar. If you don’t schedule when you’re going to work on a task, you’re not going to start working on that task.
This is where time blocking comes in handy. You don’t have to schedule working on that 2024 bookkeeping task for 3:15 p.m. this Thursday. But if you have a block for doing financial tasks every Thursday afternoon, it’ll be easy to slot that bookkeeping into a cozy spot on your schedule. Revisit my past posts on time blocking to get thinking about the kinds of blocks you need to tackle your overhanging tasks:
Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity
Frogs, Tomatoes, and Bees: Time Techniques to Get Things Done
Paper Doll Shares Secrets from the Task Management & Time Blocking Summit 2022
Highlights from the 2023 Task Management & Time Blocking Summit
I have previously written a lot about activation energy and its importance in getting you over the hump when motivation isn’t doing the trick. William James had a nifty quote about this, too:
“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”
We can’t wait to be inspired. Sometimes, we just have to take out the trash, replace the light bulb, or call to complain about a mistake on the bill, whether we feel like it or not. But it’s easier to do if there’s a slot on the calendar for household care or dealing with problems.
- Celebrate every win — There’s a reason why so many of us write down things we’ve already done on our task list for the day, just so we can check them off. Having done something, and particularly something that’s been hanging over us for a while, is an accomplishment.
Acknowledge each and every completed task. It will reinforce your sense of satisfaction and motivate you to keep taking action. Nobody is saying you have to shout it from the rafters (though that would be cool), but perhaps go out for a nice meal to celebrate and see if you can spot a server doing a great job remembering all the orders.
Once you have it on your schedule, give some thought to where you’ll work on this task. Find the right environment, or create a virtual one to get you in the mood. I’m already tickled to use this 12-hour Gilmore Girls-themed video so I can finish my tasks at Luke’s Diner in Stars Hollow.
You might prefer a Yule Log video like the ones that used to run on television on Christmas Day. Youtube is full of them, and there’s even a playlist of the best. But if you’d like to feel like someone is cozily keeping you company while you check items off your list, perhaps Nick Offerman’s ten-hour Yule Log might be the way to go.
FINISHING UP
In James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter from Thursday, November 14, 2024, I was introduced to Emily Dickinson’s poem Forever – is composed of Nows – (690), on the power of the moment.
Take advantage of the upcoming moments in the quiet lull between now and the end of the year. Use these moments to get started. You don’t have to DO THE THING, but you can plan to do the thing.
You don’t have to rebalance your financial portfolio to make your retirement more accessible. But you can call and make an appointment with your financial planner, or with a certified financial planner if you don’t already have one. (And hey, my colleagues at Eddy & Schein Group have even put together some guidance on Wrapping Up Year-End Personal Financial Affairs regarding with whom you should be speaking, and about what, in terms of your money life.)
Perhaps your hanging-on task is spending down your flexible spending account (FSA). If your employer permits it, you can carry over up to $640 of unused funds from 2024 into 2025, but why not get your goodies, now? You set aside money, pre-tax, for healthcare stuff; don’t let it go to waste because you forgot to check what you could buy. Look up how much you’ve got left in your account, and then Google your options. For example, Yahoo Tech has 35 Surprising Things You Can Buy with Your FSA Money. (Seriously, did you know you could buy an Oura ring with your FSA?)
You were supposed to pick a new dentist or doctor or schedule that mammogram but just never found the time? OK, don’t kick yourself. But look at your insurance website or app to find out who is in-network, and schedule. (Well, yes, you’ll then sit on hold for a bit before you get to sync up your nifty 2025 calendar with a provider’s schedule. But it’s not going to take as much time as learning calculus. For what it’s worth, I learned just enough to pass the class in college and then, Zeigarnik-style, let all that unnecessary knowledge fall out of my head. You will not be shocked to know that it’s all been OK.)
Go through the unanswered emails in your inbox and send replies, even if the reply just says, “The year got away from me, but I appreciate you contacting me about [whatever], and if it’s still something you want to discuss, let’s get on each other’s calendar’s for late January.” Or you can say “nope, but thanks anyway.” Whatever you do, you’ll feel like you moved forward.
Make a list, chuck the tasks that no longer really matter, pick the ones that will be most satisfying (emotionally, financially, or practically) to complete, schedule time to do them, and give yourself a resounding “HUZZAH!” And if you could use a little accountability, feel free to share in the comments section: what overhanging task might you complete in the next week?
Paper Doll Post:
Organize Your Way Out of the Winter Doldrums
Sigh. the musical Annie may be right that “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow,” but the sun never came out yesterday.
Granted, it was a rainy day, but in addition to the dark, dreariness of the day, and the too-swift passing of a December Sunday, the sun went down without my noticing because it really never seemed to come up. As I may have alluded to in Organize Your Sleep When the Clocks Change and Beyond, I’m not much of a fan of Standard Time. I like lots of sunshine, and particularly want long, light evenings to run errands and move about in the world.
We’re in a darker, gloomier time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. That, combined with the wonkiness of the end of the year, makes this a weird time. Some folks are delighting in preparing for the holidays, getting ready to entertain and celebrate, but over and over, I’m hearing from friends and clients alike that they aren’t quite “feeling it,” or at least not yet.
A few people have asked, having jokingly, if there are ways to organize yourself out of feeling out of sorts at the end of the year. I think there are.
This is the final “normal” week of the year. Next week is Christmas and the start of Hanukkah, and the week after, is New Year’s. While many folks are (or will be) with family and celebrating, there are many who are feeling a walking-through-molasses sluggishness at this time of year. Half their co-workers are out of the office, and while some clients are expecting attention, there’s a widespread, tacit understanding that nobody is starting anything new for the next 2 1/2 weeks.
So, if you’re in your annual happy place, please feel free to skip this week’s post. But if you’re grumbling about the dark and the cold, about another year over and about the “meh” of it all, I have some suggestions.
COPING WITH THE “BASEMENT WEEKS” OF THE YEAR
These weeks aren’t just the bottom of the year. They can feel dark, cold, even soggy. There’s a hurry-up feeling just before the holidays and, for most, a drop-off in delight between the holidays and again at the start of the year.
But winter really can be the most wonderful time of the year if you have the right mindset, according Kari Leibowitz, PhD., a Stanford-trained psychologist. She’s written a book on how to improve mental health by changing how you think about the winter months.
Leibowitz moved to Tromsø, Norway, above the Arctic Circle, to live for a year. For two entire months, the sun doesn’t rise in Tromsø! You’d think everyone there would be crabby and stabby during that time, but she found that the community approached the season with a chipper mentality. She similarly explored places on earth with “some of the coldest, darkest, longest and most intense winters, and discovered the power of “wintertime mindset”— viewing the season as full of opportunity and wonder.”
To help those of us (who can at least feel grateful that we’re not above the Arctic Circle) starting to struggle with finding inspiration this time of year, Leibowitz wrote How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days.
Get Psyched for Winter
Liebowitz says that changing our mindsets about winter is key. Apparently, we tend to psych ourselves out, adopting a mindset that assumes that winter will be grim, so it feels that way. I get it. As a professional organizer, I’ve seen how often people expect that organizing will be boring and that they’ll be grumpy, so when they do it on their own, it is. They’re surprised when a professional organizer comes in and treats the experience as hopeful and (dare I say it?) entertaining?
As an organizer, I approach working with a new client, or even a new session, by focusing on the possibilities of finding delight. I see myself, in partnership with a client, as an explorer, a detective, an anthropologist, and more. Because I expect fun, I will (generally) find it (and get to share it with the client).
Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, and interpret, new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. If you expect winter to be misery-inducing, you’ll find signs of it everywhere.
Easier said that done? Maybe not. Instead of seeing winter as two potentially fun (but possibly disappointing) weeks followed by months of darkness, we can look for ways to see winter, as a whole, as fun.
Create a Winter Wonderland in Your Space
I’m sure you’ve heard about hygge. A few years ago, books about hygge, the Danish approach to winter coziness, was all the rage. (If you need an introduction, The New Yorker‘s 2016 piece, The Year of Hygge, the Danish Obsession with Getting Cozy, is a great place to start.)
Western articles about hygge tend to focus on the physical atmosphere. Every single piece will reference candles. The Danes are very big on candles being comforting. Personally, I worry about candles getting knocked over. If you have pets and tiny humans, consider safe alternatives to lit candles, like fairly lights or tiny, flickering LED tea lights.
If you have a fireplace and don’t have to worry about kids or creatures in close proximity, consider making a ritual out of lighting a nightly fire to increase the cozy atmosphere.
There’s no official hygge-ness to it, but I think it’s wise to create a winter beverage station. Think about the coffee stations you see in bed & breakfast venues and boutique hotel lobbies. Consider investing in a cute tray and a variety of teas, coffees, mulled ciders, and hot chocolates. Buy a few tiny bottles of flavoring syrups, or fill a glass canister with mini-marshmallows. Whether you’re working from home or recovering from exposure to a snowy day, your daily beverage experience can be a ritual for emotional, as well as physical, warmth.
If you’re up for some “scentsational” improvements, extend the scents of the holiday season and use essential oils like cinnamon, pine, or citrus. (Generally, I prefer unscented products, but am obsessed with buying citrus-scented foaming hand soaps. Even before COVID, I was in the habit of washing my hands as soon as I came in from the outside world — you never know what supermarket shelf had germs! — and those citrusy, foamy bubbles and warm water are a great transition when you first come in out of the cold.)
Increase comfort in various places in your house. Plush blankets are soft, warm, and nurturing. The weather outside may be frightful, but you can feel snuggly the whole day (and night) long.
Fellow GenXers may recall how cozy it was to wear leg-warmers in the 1980s, both inside and outside. You might think leg-warmers disappeared when Jane Fonda workout videos did, but they’re still available in a variety of styles and colors.
It’s not necessarily hygge to use them this way, but on a day where you need a lift, dance around your house to a TikTok video and pretend you’re an extra in an episode of Fame.
Organize Your Winter to Embrace Hygge Attitudes
In addition to the physical comforts that can improve your mood in the winter, there are hygge-related attitudes (irrespective of holidays) that can give you some uplift when you’re struggling against the (literal or figurative) darkness.
- Be present — It’s so easy to get caught up in the news and crummy things happening halfway around the world or just elsewhere near you, but miss the small treasures in your own life. Be present in the moment by stepping back from technology. For more reasons and inspiration, read my post, Celebrate the Global Day of Unplugging.
- Add pleasure rituals to each day — You can counteract the glumness of winter by adding little treats to your day (and to the days of everyone around you). Call a friend to come over and hang out while you bake cookies. Of course, winter treats don’t have to be caloric. Come home after a work day to glory in a bubble bath. Try skincare rituals that may have seemed like silly luxuries before, like a face- or full-body sheet mask.
- Create a cadence to the week with personal and social rituals — Rituals added to the ebb and flow of your week can make the winter pass more quickly. For the next few months, try having a standing date with friends, whether it’s a low-effort Sunday dinner (rotating houses), board-game afternoon, or a movie night. Consider pancake/waffle breakfasts on Saturday with the kids and experiment with different types recipes or shapes. The key is that you don’t have to go out in the winter weather (though you could) to have something to look forward to each week that’s not a big production, but that will lift your spirits.
- Practice gratitude — Hey, at least you don’t live above the Arctic Circle. At least we don’t live in horse and buggy days and have to get our drinking/cleaning/bathing water from the river. At least there’s Zoom and Door Dash and electricity. Be thankful for small mercies, for loving friends, or for whatever you don’t have that you don’t want. Journal, write gratitude lists, or write notes to the people to and for whom you are grateful! Imagine how getting such a note could brighten their winter days!
- Volunteer — If you’re having trouble even feeling grateful, consider volunteering with a local charity, at a shelter (for unhoused persons, for victims of domestic violence, for animals looking for their forever homes, etc.).
- Practice mindfulness — The Polish website Prze Kroj’s Mindfulness Exercises for a Cold Day provides a variety of approaches to reframing the thoughts we have about the stagnation of these dark days (“Oh, no, another year is ending and I still haven’t written my novel!”) and offers ideas for positive reinforcement and self-awareness.
Behave “As If” and Upgrade Your Winter Activities
I will never ski. I ice skate maybe once every fifteen years. You know how some people are “at one” with nature? I am at two with nature.
But Leibowitz found that the folks of Tromsø found ways to spend their winters living more closely in sync with nature, adapting to the seasons by giving in and taking cues from our animal friends. Perhaps we need not hibernate, but that hygge coziness (resting more, slowing down) apparently blends nicely in concert with Thumper and Bambi (playing outside).
So, following Leibowitz’s advice that we act as if we were outdoorsy folks, we could:
- Take an energizing walk when the sun is out. (You may recall from the Organize Your Sleep When the Clocks Change and Beyond that getting daylight helps reset the body clock so our insides know that it’s time to go night-night.)
- If you’re not me, try a winter sport or activity that’s less about competition and more about having fun: ice skating, sledding, skiing (downhill or cross-country), snowshoeing, tubing, tobogganing. etc.
- You don’t have to be athletic. You and the neighbor kids (or the cute neighbor guy, if your life imitates a Hallmark movie) can make a snowman or build a snow fort.
Love and Other Indoor Sports
Of course, you don’t have to go outside. Leibowitz recommends the dark winter months are ideal for engaging in “low-arousal positive activities,” — activities that give us a warm glow rather than ruddy faces and iced-lung wheezes.
If you’d like to explore an activity that makes the winter brighter or cozier but without having to put on your shoes, winter is a great time to organize your hobby exposure.
- Take up a craft or hobby. Give yourself permission to be terrible at knitting or painting. Nobody needs to know.
- Explore an online class (live or recorded) to learn how to do something (cook, take better photographs, do those viral social media dances) or just to know something (about the Holy Roman Empire, or what are the other parts of a cell, because all you remember is that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, and there must be more to it).
- Take up an indoor physical activity. Every January, people sign up for gym memberships as part of New Year’s resolutions. They go a few times and their motivation peters out. Don’t let winter beat you up or guilt you out. Try an online exercise class. There’s a reason why Yoga with Adriene is a perennial favorite, even with those of us with wonky balance and no flexibility. Adriene and her doggie offer a comforting yoga practice, and you don’t have to switch out of your jammies and into Spandex. (Though you might want to try out the aforementioned leg-warmers!)
Conversely, go the reverse route. Instead of trying something new, reinvigorate yourself with the love of something old.
From my late twenties and through my thirties (and beyond), I had a favorite regional band, The Floating Men. They weren’t MTV-famous, but I attended their small- and medium-sized venue concerts in various cities where I lived (or traveled to) and always felt immense joy as we all (The Floatilla) sang along and danced with revelry.
The band stopped playing gigs as their grownup careers got in the way, but last year, they announced they were going to start performing again. There wouldn’t be shows every few weeks, but there would be a show in Nashville and I was jazzed! But it sold out in moments. They added a second show. It sold out right away again. I shrugged and figured I’d just comfort myself with the CDs that have sustained me for decades.
I was surprised and delighted when they announced a show here in Chattanooga, and I managed to get tickets; that show, too, had sold out quickly and a second night was added, and as frugal as I am, I arranged to go to that show, too. I’ve been listening to the band’s music for a long time, but in the months since I bought the ticket, I listen much more often, singing out loud and dancing around the house. I’m remembering the concerts, but also the joy of hearing the music for the first time, or introducing it to others. Sometimes, recalling old loves can kindle new sparks.
What old loves can you bring back into your life? (No, don’t call your ex.)
- Re-read books that brings you joy or comfort — I re-read all the Jane Austen novels almost every year. (This winter, I’m considering a movie marathon over weeks, watching every movie based on an Austen novel.)
- Listen to music from your youth — Listen to your tangible music formats or go to Spotify, but pretend it’s your senior year of high school or college and play what thrilled you back then. If it’s Squeeze’s Singles – 45’s and Under, let me know in the comments and we can sing Tempted together over Zoom.
- Re-binge your favorite shows from way back — Chances are good that there are shows you loved back before there were DVRs (or even VCRs). Watch them again, and maybe share the love with a partner, friend, or kid who never experienced the show the first time through. (I’m ready for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch.)
- Listen to podcasts that review the stuff you loved — I’m a sucker for podcasts where fans talk about TV shows, but also where actors talk about the shows they were in, and each show focuses on one episode. I loved The West Wing Weekly when there was a new episode every week, and my plan is to start listening to I Am All In, Scott (Luke Danes) Patterson’s Gilmore Girls podcast.
And as long as I’m talking about Gilmore Girls, have you seen the new Walmart commercial with the cast?
Unlike some of the rest of us, Lorelai loves winter. If you’re a fan, you know how happy she gets when she can smell snow.
The point of all of this is that you can use the darkness of winter as permission to slow down, rest, and rebuild for a coming spring. Soon enough, we’ll be talking about all you want to accomplish for the new year. Until then, maybe reinvigorate yourself gently?
A PERSPECTIVE TO HELP YOURSELF LET GO
Paper Doll Post:
Organize Your Holiday Gift-Giving With Social Science Research
It’s that time!
Every December, my professional organizing colleagues and I write blog posts about giving (and asking for) clutter-free gifts, experiential gifts, and gifts that that help you be more organized.
The years I’ve written about consumable gifts, I’ve made myself so hungry that I’ve stopped blogging halfway through to eat close approximations of whatever I’ve researched. And I’ve coveted experiential gifts of practicality, adventure, education, and pampering. I still want the Petite Cheese Storage Vault that I wrote about in Paper Doll’s Holiday Gift List: Warm Their Hearts and Fill Their Tummies.
Apparently it no longer exists, though Cheese Grotto™ seems to have a nice approximation!
But recently, I’ve been reading some scientific research that may help organize and improve the gift-giving process and reduce some of the (emotional and financial) stress around gift-giving.
HABITUATION AND THE DELIGHT OF GIVING
I’m reading Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, by Tali Sharot and Cass R Sunstein.
The book is focused on helping us appreciate habituation, the way we are less and less delighted by things — from tangible items to our homes to our relationships — as we get used to them, and how we can change our behaviors (take breaks from our spaces, our habits, social media, and our habitual ways of living) to “resparkle” and appreciate our lives more.
The authors even quote economist Tibor Scitovsky’s classic, The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction, explaining that “pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires.”
In other words, things are more fun when we do them intermittently, rather than constantly. It’s one reason why we get delight from giving and getting gifts at the holidays. Goodies are nice, but we’d probably get bored, or at least habituated, if we got gifts every day. (OK, yes, I’m sure we’d all like to test that theory out.)
Early in the book, Sharot and Sunstein talk about the values of happiness (however you define it) and having a meaningful purpose are key to enjoying life, but that we tend to habituate to both happiness (new jobs with new salaries or new relationships) and meaning.
As an example, you might enjoy bingeing a TV show, which isn’t particularly meaningful, and the ROJI (return-on-joy-investment, in my own silly coinage) will wear off; conversely, you may invest your time in volunteering, which is fulfilling and purposeful, but you may not be particularly happy if the effort is laborious or wearying. (Why is it that good deeds can be both uplifting and exhausting?)
The authors note that one exception is the joy and meaning that comes from raising children, and they posit that we habituate much more slowly to the “satisfaction” that results from doing things for (or giving things to) others.
They evaluated and built on the social science research of Ed O’Brien and Samatha Kassirer in People Are Slow to Adapt to the Warm Glow of Giving in the journal Psychological Science, and found that if individuals were offered a $5 treat day after day for five days, the sense of joy wore off quickly.
However, when people were given (or “won”) similar funds to spend on others, day after day, while the delight they experienced did lessen somewhat, over the course of the week, they habituated to the “warm glow of giving” much more slowly. Per Sharot and Sunstein, giving “provides a greater sense of meaning than getting” and according to O’Brien and Kassirer, this is because focusing on the act of giving is inked to feelings of social connection, and by extension, value.
This doesn’t mean that you’re always going to feel great about giving your sister-in-law a gift that you know from past experience she will return. However, from an organizational perspective, keeping this concept in mind might help you avoid procrastinating on getting that “difficult” gift.
For example, when you’re dealing with the hubbub of the holiday season and are perhaps feeling dubious about the prospect of shopping or giving the “right” gift, or are even wondering if your efforts will be for naught because the other person won’t be getting you a gift that is as nice or that takes as much effort as you’re putting in, take a breath.
Gift-giving isn’t obligatory, and you need not go into debt for the holiday season. But it’s also not so that you’ll get a gift of equal value and effort. (I mean, it can be, but it shouldn’t be. Let’s organize ourselves out of these habits and attitudes.)
If you are giving gifts, and the shopping and the lists and the traffic are all giving you a headache, pause. Go have a hot cocoa (or whatever overly frothy Starbucksian beverage is your fave) and think about the fact that you’re going to get more sustained joy out of giving gifts that you might think.
Cocoa photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
Give yourself kudos and let yourself feel some delight with the knowledge that science says gift-giving is good for you.
WHAT SCIENCE SAYS ABOUT GOOD GIFT-GIVING
Did you know there’s serious research into what goes into giving a good gift? In fact, there’s a lot of it.
In the Society for Consumer Psychology Journal, Julian Givi and his team reviewed more than 160 published research papers on the topic and reported on their findings in An Integrative Review of Gift-Giving Research in Consumer Behavior and Marketing. (If you’re into reading social science research, there are links to the source material at the end of their abstract, and you can read some of the papers through Google Scholar. However, social science research tends to be a little dry, and you might nod off into your egg nog.)
Why understand the science of good gift-giving if we know the mere fact that giving gifts makes us happy?
To start with, a lot of gifts end up in the landfill. According to one estimate in 2017, five billion pounds of gift returns ended up in the landfill! And an updated 2020 estimate placed that figure at 2.6 million tons, and yes, this is just counting the United States. If we give better gifts (and here’s a one of many plugs for experiential gifts, that don’t take take up space anywhere, let alone a landfill), we’ll be kinder to the environment.
Experiential Gifts for the Win!
Every year, I sing the praises of experiential gift-giving. For example, here’s what I said last year, in Paper Doll on Clutter-Free Gifts and How to Make Gift Cards Make Sense:
The social-psychological research is sound — experiential gifts are both more memorable and more satisfying.
Memorable
With rare exceptions of special surprises and greatly anticipated gifts, we tend not to remember the tangible stuff we get. (This also means we often don’t remember the gifts we’ve bestowed on others; my organizing clients and I have discussed how we’ve received quite a few “repeats” from well-intentioned loved ones.)
Tangible gifts rarely take us out of the way we live; they fit into the lives we already lead. We may be changing what we’re wearing or how we’re cooking or what we’re playing with because the new gift varies the activity (as an accessory), but experiential gifts are uniquely different from how we spend our everyday lives. Participating in an experience changes our cognitive and physical lives in a few ways.
Part of the fun is anticipatory. When we get a tangible gift, we unwrap it and then…what? Maybe we’ll use it, maybe we’ll put it away until we think of wearing it or using it (or attempt reading the manual to learn how to use it). But when we get a gift of an experience, from the time we receive the gift card or certificate or gift announcement, we begin anticipating everything it involves. We research and get a sense of what might happen. Our imaginations take the gift we receive and add flourishes to what has been given to us.
When we get a gift of an experience, we begin anticipating everything it involves. We research and get a sense of what might happen. Our imaginations take the gift we receive and add flourishes to what has been given to us. Share on XGive someone a gift that allows them the excitement of anticipating the experience on top of the experience itself and it will be a gift that delights on the holiday, during the intervening period until the experience, and then later in retrospect in the relived and shared memories of the experience. Whoohoo! Now compare that to a sweater or a gadget (if your recipient hasn’t specifically asked for a sweater or that gadget) and you can see how an experiential gift is more nuanced and layered.
Uniquely Satisfying
Experiential gifts are unique. Human beings are social animals and even when we don’t intend to be, we are competitive. We log onto social media, see what our co-workers or our exes’ new partners got for gifts and we compare. Even if we loved our gifts before we logged on, if they got a fancier upgrade or a snootier brand, our holiday cheer is just a bit tarnished. Even if our tangible thing is somewhat superior, the excitement doesn’t last.
However, we don’t compare experiences in the same way. Even if we both went to the same escape room or to Las Vegas or on a cruise, the variables — who we’re with, the weather, our moods, etc. — are going to be so different that there’s no valid comparison. Our experiences are unique to us.
But guess what, it’s not just me saying that!
In reporting on his research review, Givi said that the published papers he looked at found several interesting things about experiential gifts.
What a Girl (or a Guy) Wants
First, as much as we professional organizers have tried to persuade you that experiences are the way to go, gift-givers like giving material gifts but recipients really want gift of experiences. In “Remember me, will you?”: Overusing Material Gifts for Interpersonal Memory Management, researchers found:
Givers are more likely than recipients to consider the memory consequences of gift options, as givers intuitively use material gifts as interpersonal mnemonic devices to facilitate the recipient’s retrieval of giver-related memories. As such, this preference discrepancy occurs in various stages of developing relationships but is mitigated in very close relationships.
In other words, “Hey, mom, remember when I got you that expensive hair dryer made by the people who made your vacuum cleaner?”
We’re often focused on trying to make sure our recipients remember not just the gift (which, as I’ve already suggested above, is less likely with tangible things than experiences) but remember that we were the ones who gave it. I mean, I don’t want to say we’re being manipulative when we do that, but there’s obviously some ego involved. Are we buying love? Are we jockeying for position in the family hierarchy relative (no pun intended) to our siblings? Are we trying to get our in-laws to stop referring to us by our significant other’s ex’es name?
Personally, I suspect that if you give your Aunt Sylvia a gift certificate for a massage or Gramps a National Parks pass, they’re going to remember where the gift originated from a lot more than they would with a fuzzy sweater or a book about World War II.
Don’t Focus on the Face!
Second, not only do we not give people what they want (leaving aside the people — usually teens — who are very specific about what they want), but research says that we tend to give people what will yield a more (visibly) positive reaction than one what will actually satisfy them!
In The Smile-Seeking Hypothesis: How Immediate Affective Reactions Motivate and Reward Gift Giving, researchers found (through six (!) studies) that people put a lot of effort into giving gifts based on what they anticipate the recipient’s reaction will be, “independently (and even in spite of) anticipated recipient satisfaction.”
(When the first of my friends had a child, I put way too much effort into imagining how they’d react when opening the gift. Given my terrible job trying to wrap a stuffed lion, I suspect the emotion was pure relief that the gift was finally uncovered!)
If you’re dealing with a five-year-old, the “affective reactions” and their feelings about their Barbie or video game will likely be the same, but adults mask their true feelings and give socially-acceptable reactions to gifts. (Think about how moms and dads made a huge show of getting misshapen clay ashtrays as gifts even if they didn’t smoke, or how fancy-pants successful young adults in Hallmark movies give their parents expensive but impersonal gifts when the parents just want their kids home for the holidays on their reindeer milk farm.)
One other intriguing thing: this “reaction-maximizing preference” where givers focus on reaction rather than recipient satisfaction was lessened when the gift wouldn’t be opened in the presence of the giver.
Apparently, we try to psychoanalyze our recipients and figure out what’s going to make them make us feel good about what we gave them. If we’re not going to be there to see their faces, especially in this era where almost nobody sends thank you notes, we don’t fret as much about their reactions.
Maybe this explains why we’re less likely to give experiential gifts? There’s a ritual involved in unwrapping a gift and showing it off to all in attendance, and you can’t really do that to the same effect with a gift certificate, theater tickets, or a fancy reservation.
We don’t know that’s what we’re doing, so it’s not like we’re monsters, but maybe now that we know, we can reign in this behavior? (If nothing else, you can share this post with your significant other so that when your whole family is exchanging gifts and you get something wildly inappropriate that you know you’re supposed to gush over, you can tug on your ear Carol Burnett-style to share an understanding of the ridiculousness of the situation.)
Build Stronger Connections
Third, Givi found another reason for giving gifts of experiences that I’ve never touched on in all the years I’ve written about this topic. He notes that in Experiential Gifts Foster Stronger Social Relationships Than Material Gifts in the Journal of Consumer Research, Cindy Chan and Cassie Mogilner found that, as the title notes:
…experiential gifts produce greater improvements in relationship strength than material gifts, regardless of whether the gift giver and recipient consume the gift together. The relationship improvements that recipients derive from experiential gifts stem from the intensity of emotion that is evoked when they consume the gifts, rather than when the gifts are received. Giving experiential gifts is thus identified as a highly effective form of prosocial spending.
Which is all a dry, academic, social science-y way of saying that when you give someone an experiential gift — even if they’re not going to be having the experience with you — it strengthens the bonds between you.
And further, the Big Wow of emotion doesn’t come at the moment when you tell someone that you’ve bought them tickets to Hamilton (though they’ll likely be super-psyched) or a year’s supply of car washes; it comes when they’re all dressed up and humming “The Room Where It Happens” or driving through the car wash without having to open their wallet.
Other Findings About Gift Giving
Skip the novelty gifts — Once again, gift-givers are focused on the moment the gift gets unwrapped.
I get it. You see something cute or funny or outrageous and want to see your giftee’s expression when they see they got Big Mouth Billy talking bass, but aside from the fact that it’ll be one of the first things their eventual professional organizer will be helping them let go of, recipients are focused more on the long-term utility of a tangible (non-consumable) gift.
Skip grand but meaningless gestures — Similarly, a gift that evinces shock, surprise, or humor isn’t as big a draw as things that are useful. If your recipient has an Amazon wish list, look at it and select a gift from it. (If you must do something that reflects your personality, make that a stocking stuffer or night 7 Hanukkah gift.)
Rethink gift cards — As I wrote about last year, gift cards give people flexibility. Yes, there are some negative connotations surrounding gift cards among the Silent Generation and older Boomers. But the younger people are, the happier they are likely to be if they get a gift card that reflects their tastes. (Still, unless they asked for it, don’t give your spouse a gift card as their main gift. Figure out what they really want.)
If you give a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon-master a gift certificate to her favorite game store or a fashionistas gift cards to their favorite clothing shops, letting them pick out what’s perfect for them, you’ve ensure that the thought does, indeed, count, and the thought is that you know them well enough to guess, at least generally, and care enough not to impose your own tastes.
Don’t be afraid to be sentimental — Researchers (such as in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) have found that people tend to avoid giving sentimental gifts because they may seem schmaltzy or fear they will miss the mark. A candle or a picture frame may seem safe, but is “safe” the way you want to go when giving a gift to someone you love? I think not.
And again, as with experiential gifts, sentimental gifts have a value that keeps you off the hedonic treadmill.
You remember the hedonic treadmill, right? As I wrote in Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset,
In the famous story of Diderot’s dressing gown, the French philosopher was gifted a fancy robe to replace a tatty one. As Diderot got used to his new dressing gown, he came to see his sense of self as defined by its finery. He felt dissatisfaction with his older possessions and began of spiral of 18th century keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism, replacing the perfectly good items associated with his old life and going into debt to keep up with the identity of the new.
Just as experiences are unique and uniquely satisfying, sentimental gifts that recall (and reinvigorate) personal relationships — gifts like photo books, albums, family recipe collections, and anything that evokes memories — are unique to those involved. You don’t habituate to sentimental gifts the way you do to an air fryer or bathrobe.
So, to wrap it up:
- Remember that gift-giving will make you feel good.
- Take your ego out of gift-giving and focus on the recipient’s needs and tastes.
- Give gifts of experience because they’re meaningful, recipients like them, and it’ll bring you closer together.
- Don’t focus on the big reveal (when they unwrap the gift) or your recipient’s social-norm-induced reaction.
- Think about what they asked for, what you know about their tastes, and what will make them really happy.
RECAPPING THE BEST OF PAPER DOLL’S GIFT-GIVING ADVICE
If you need some inspiration for what to get the people in your life this holiday season, I invite you to explore some of my posts over the last few years.
Paper Doll on Clutter-Free Gifts and How to Make Gift Cards Make Sense
Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Clutter-Free Experiential Gifts: Adventure, Practicality & Pampering (Note: this is one of my of all of my holiday posts over the last 17 years.)
Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Clutter-Free Experiential Gifts: Educational
MORE GOOD ADVICE FROM MY COLLEAGUES
Collectively, my colleagues have written too many stellar posts on giving great clutter-free, experiential, or organizing-themed gifts over the years for me to name them all. However, I think you’ll enjoy taking a peek at these recent posts:
Great Organizing and Productivity Gifts for 2024 from Seana Turner of The Seana Method is chock-full of gifts that — if you are set on giving someone something to unwrap — will solve organizational problems without screaming “I’m practical and boring!” (I’m partial to the rechargeable lamp and the cool yoga storage tube.)
Tons of No-Clutter Gifts for the Holidays from Sabrina Quairoli of Sabrina’s Organizing focuses on consumable gifts (so, yummy!), memberships, and charitable donations, as well as her Sabrina’s take on experiential gifts with days/evenings out and lessons.
Plus, The Spruce interviewed three professional organizers for their 5 Holiday Gifts That Will Only Make Your Home More Cluttered, According to Organizers, and I have to say I agree.
That said, I have to admit that I’m a sucker for coffee mugs with messages or images that delight. Several years ago, my colleague Dr. Regina Lark gave me a coffee mug with a funny (though naughtily unprintable in a “family” blog) message that delights me each morning that it comes up in my rug rotation. Also, I really like my Mr. Rogers mug. (His sweater changes colors when you pour in a hot beverage!)
Again, this is where knowing your recipient is important!
As this post goes to press, you’ve got about two and a half weeks until Christmas and the start of Hanukkah. I hope today’s post and the links to past advice will help you find delight in giving.
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