Paper Doll
Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Getting a Document Notarized
When I was little, I thought a notary public was “Note of Republic.” After all, the concept of [“thing] of [location]” is a known form of expression. Consider Governor of Minnesota, Justice of [the] Peace, or Man of La Mancha. I figured “Note of Republic” meant that it was a document related to our country.
C’mon, it’s weird to hear “public” after a word. We have Certified Public Accountants, not Certified Accountants Public! We’re used to public school, public pool, public park, public relations. What the heck, I wondered when I first saw the expression properly written, was a notary?
Yes, I’m a grownup now, and (mostly) understand what notaries do, but unless you have used a notary’s services or are a notary yourself, you might wonder how it all ensures your legal documents are organized and squared away.
WHAT DOES A NOTARY DO?
Notary Stamp by Stephen Goldberg on Unsplash
According to the State of Tennessee (where Paper Doll resides), a notary public is:
a person of integrity who is appointed to act as an impartial witness to the signing of an important transaction and to perform a notarial act, which validates the transaction. A notary’s primary purpose is to prevent fraud and forgery by requiring the personal presence of the signer and satisfactorily identifying the signer.
Let’s look at how those elements come into play:
- a person of integrity — The rules vary by state, but generally, you have to be at least 18 years old, a citizen of the United States (though in some states, you need only be a permanent resident), either reside in the state or operate a business in that state, and be able to read and write in English.
You also have to submit an application and purchase a notary surety bond, which is like an insurance policy in that it protects the public in case a notary makes a grievous error.
As you might guess, people with felony records would not fall under the “person of integrity” definition and can’t become notaries. However, while we can all imagine various failures of integrity (bullying, gossiping, cheating at Scrabble), those don’t generally prevent someone from becoming a notary.
- act as an impartial witness — notaries can’t notarize their own signatures, transactions in which they are participants, or documents for their family members or friends.
- requiring the personal presence of the signer — until recently, “personal presence” was literal, but as we will see later, a virtual presence is sometimes an option.
- satisfactorily identifying the signer — this involves the signer being able to provide documents that prove identity.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF NOTARIZATION?
If you’ve never had to get something notarized before, you may assume that there’s just one kind of notarization, where the notary says, “Yup, I’m acknowledging that I just saw you sign this thing.” But it’s more complicated than that.
There are main three types of notarizations:
1) Acknowledgements — The notary is saying, “OK, I just saw this person [verified as the lovely Ms. Nell Fenwick] sign this document willingly; there was no mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash threatening to tie this person to the railroad tracks if they didn’t sign over the rights to their goldmine.” (What, don’t tell me you never watched Dudley Do-Right!)
There are some essential elements here:
- The signer (that’s Nell) has shown up in front of the notary.
- The notary has been able to positivity identify the person is actually Nell (according to the individual state’s regulations).
- The signer has either signed the document before showing up or must sign it in the notary’s presence.
- The signer has to be able to communicate directly to the notary that the signing is willingly done, at least in 49 states. However, in Arizona, the law allows signers to communicate their willingness to the notary through a translator.
(Also, for the purposes of this blog post, Nell and Snidely are in the United States, not Canada where the cartoon takes place. With apologies to my international readers, non-US notary regulations were far too complex to include in today’s post!)
The notary is required to make sure that the individual understands what the document is and what it means and what the consequences are, in addition to being willing to sign and not under any appearance of being coerced.
Obviously, notaries are not mind-readers; they can’t be certain a person isn’t in an emotionally abusive relationship or having their loved one held for ransom, but a notary can refuse to notarize a document if something seems seriously hinky. The notary can ask all sorts of questions, ranging from the kinds of questions first responders ask accident victims to those of a more legal nature. If the signer appears drunk or under the influence of dugs, or to be suffering from dementia or is otherwise seems cognitively, the notary can (and must) decline to notarize the document.
Acknowledgments are used when you’re getting any of a variety of documents signed, like a contract, a Power of Attorney, or a last will and testament.
2) Jurats — This old-timey, legalese expression (also known as “verification upon oath or affirmation” means that the signer is swearing (or affirming) to the notary that the contents of document they are signing are true.
- As a signer, you must show up and sign the document in front of the notary.
- In many (but, to Paper Doll‘s surprise, not all) states, the notary must verify the signer’s identity.
- The notary administer’s a verbal oath (or affirmation) and the signer must respond aloud* in such a away as to confirm mutual understanding. No nods or thumbs-up are allowed.
*I tried to find verification of what is required if the signer is deaf or is not able to speak, and while there don’t seem to be uniform answers, I was able to learn that communication through a translator or sign interpreter is not enough, though the notary and signer are allowed to communicate in sign language, via writing notes on paper, or typing on a computer, tablet, or cell phone, as long as they are in one another’s presence.
In theory, signers are supposed to raise their right hands while making the oath or affirming (just like in a courtroom), but it’s not required by law. (It’s just to make it obvious that this is more serious, legally speaking, than telling your college roommate’s mom that your roommate is in the shower she’s actually sleeping at her boyfriend’s dorm.)
The idea of an oath or affirmation may ring a bell if you’ve watched a lot of courtroom dramas and have heard, “Do you solemnly swear…”
In brief, an oath is a pledge before a religious entity. As some faiths do not allow oaths to be taken in civil settings, and as some people do not adhere to religious precepts, individuals get a choice. For more on the difference, the National Notary Association has made a short video to explain:
A jurat is used when you must notarize testimony. Imagine you are asked to notarize your statement that you witnessed Ms. Lucy Van Pelt promise not to pull the football away from Mr. Charlie Brown but then she pulled the football away, causing him to kick at the air, fall on his back, and complain of seeing stars.
There are different forms or certificates that notaries use for each notarization, whether acknowledgements or jurats. Generally, an acknowledgment certificate will say something like “acknowledged before me” (where “me” is the notary), while the jurat certificates will say something like, “subscribed and sworn to (or affirmed) before me.”
3) Copy certifications — This is when a notary confirms that the copy of a document is an exact match to the original version. Not all states allow this type of notarization.
Notaries can also provide other services. They can administer oaths, like those given to people deposed in legal depositions. (Notaries can’t administer oaths of office for government service or in a military setting, though.) In Maine, South Carolina, and Florida, they can also perform marriage ceremonies!
Pretty much any kind of document can be notarized except for government vital records documents, like birth and death certificates, or marriage certificates. Notaries aren’t allowed to notarize, make, or certify copies of these; instead, you have to go to the appropriate government agency to get certified copies. For more on that, see Paper Doll‘s post from last year, How to Replace and Organize 7 Essential Government Documents.
HOW CAN YOU PREPARE TO GET SOMETHING NOTARIZED?
First, be sure you know exactly what you need to get notarized and fill in all of the blank spaces (except, as applicable, the signature line).
Next, make an appointment with a notary. While you can sometimes show up at a notary’s office, you wouldn’t want random people showing up to your place of work, unannounced, and have to squeeze them in. Be cool, dude.
Verify the fees you’ll be paying and ask how the notary accepts payment. Notary fees differ by state and notarization type, are set by law for most states, so you can check with your state’s Secretary of State’s office for the basic fees; however, notaries can charge separate fees for travel and for remote services.
Notaries at banks may not charge anything for the service, and notary at companies (like the UPS Store) may allow any of the payment methods the company already accepts for other services. But self-employed notaries are allowed to make up their own payment policies, and might require payment by cash or check; don’t assume they’ll take Venmo.
Bring your photo ID. Remember, the notary’s job is, in part, to verify that signers are who they claim to be, and that can’t be done if the signers do not present valid ID. Usually, a government-issued ID with a photo, like a driver’s license or password, is required.
If someone lacks legal identification, the situation isn’t impossible, but it’s fraught. For example, let’s say that Grandpa is in an assisted living facility, hasn’t driven in a decade, and doesn’t have a passport or a government issued photo ID. In many states, the signer can call upon “credible identifying witnesses,” people willing to swear to the notary that they know Grandpa and that he is who he says he is. But Grandpa’s witnesses are going to have those required forms of identification.
Speaking of ID, make sure the name on your ID matches the name you’re using on the documents you need to have notarized. If you’ve recently gotten divorced and have returned to your “maiden” name, or have married and taken your spouse’s name or hyphenated your names, you’ll need to show ID that reflects that change.
Make sure everyone who needs to sign is available for the appointment. (If someone in your family always shows up late, you might want to “accidentally” tell them a slightly earlier time — or drive them yourself!)
Know what the heck you’re going to be signing and what it means. The notary has to make sure that the signer is willing to sign and fully aware of what they’re signing. Paper Doll shouldn’t have to tell you this, but don’t show up at the notary’s office after a boozy brunch. (In the case of Grandpa, above, you might want to warn him that the notary might ask some questions to make sure he’s mentally alert and not signing under duress, so he’s not offended by the questions.)
Be prepared to sign the notary’s log book, which is also known as a public journal. Most states require that notaries keep a log book or journal of all the notary-related acts they perform. It covers all the nitty-gritty details of the transaction, so if a notarized document goes missing, gets stolen or altered, or anything becomes a matter of legal dispute, the record can be set straight. Plus, it keeps everything so nice and organized.
A few years ago, a friend contacted me and asked if I would serve as a witness so that her elderly mother could get some documents signed and notarized. In addition to having to sign my name on the various documents as a witness, I had to sign the notary’s log book/journal, provide my photo ID, write my driver’s license ID number, and provide my thumbprint (which was less messy than I expected, but made me feel like a character on Law & Order).
WHERE CAN YOU FIND A NOTARY?
Photo by Matthias Süßen, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
You may assume that because any notary can notarize your document that any notary will, but that’s not the case. For example, several years ago I needed to sign a document for Paper Mommy and have my signature witnessed and notarized.
Most banks provide notary services, and I was delighted to see that Bank of America provides fee-free notary services. So, I went to Bank of America, where I had both personal and business accounts, but once they saw that it was a Power of Attorney document, I was told that bank employees were not allowed to notarize it, as a matter of company policy.
In the end, I got my signature notarized at the UPS Store just up the block from the bank. It felt odd to be getting a legal document notarized next to people buying bubble wrap and making Amazon returns, but the process was quick and easy, and the fee was reasonable.
In addition to banks and credit unions, you may be able to find notary services at any of the following:
- Law firms — Sometimes paralegals and legal secretaries are notaries, and the process will be faster than trying to see an attorney-notary.
- Real Estate firms — Call your agent; if you’re a renter, ask your friends if any of them loved their real estate purchase experience and how they got documents notarized.
- Accountants — You may be out of luck if you file your taxes with H&R Block or TurboTax, but if you have a relationship with an accountant (and aren’t pestering her during tax season), you might get lucky.
- Package shipping stores like the UPS Store (hey, it worked for me) and FedEx Office (which they offer through a virtual service, of which there’s more below)
- AAA — Most regional AAA offices provide free notary services as part of membership. However, AAA can’t notarize business contracts, mortgages, or wills; if you’ve got to notarize an auto sale, Power of Attorney documents, trusts, or affidavits, though, you’ll be fine. You can’t always make appointments at AAA, so you may end up sitting in the lobby for a while until it’s your turn.
- Public libraries — Many library systems have notaries on staff; you may have to go to a branch that is not where you usually borrow, so call to verify which branches have notaries available. The notaries at your library may be limited as to which documents they can notarize; mine can notarize sworn statements, Power of Attorney documents, rental agreements, copy certifications, and more, but can’t notarize real estate transactions, wills, divorce papers, employment verification forms, Homeland Security I-9 Forms, or documents in languages other than English.
- Colleges — If a member of your family attends a college or university, call the bursar’s office. They’re likely to have someone on-staff with notary credentials or will know where to go.
You can also find notaries the old-fashioned way, by searching the Yellow Pages, using a search engine (e.g., type “notary services [your town]” into Google), or searching statewide notary databases.
Weirdly, there does not seem to be a database of notary databases (which feels awfully disorganized of them), so you’ll have to search for your state’s database through a search engine or by looking at your state’s Secretary of State website.
You don’t have to go to the notary; notaries will come to you!
Over the last few decades, mobile notaries have become a thing. The same notaries whom you can visit for services may provide mobile notary services for an additional fee. Type “mobile notary near me” into your favorite search engine.
As I mentioned earlier, when a friend needed to have her mother’s documents signed, witnessed and notarized, my experience as a professional organizer (and resource researcher) came in handy, and I was able to recommend a wonderful Chattanooga notary public. While there was an additional fee for him to travel to my friend’s location, it far outweighed the inconvenience (and likely impossibility) of getting her elderly and infirm mother to the notary’s office.
Thus, you’ll want to weigh the cost of us using a mobile notary against the convenience of having someone come to you.
WHAT IF YOU CAN’T GET TO A NOTARY (AND ONE CAN’T GET TO YOU)?
A notary can’t just notarize a person’s signature over the phone or Zoom. I know. Bummer.
That said, as a result of lessened bureaucracy due to the COVID pandemic, there’s Remote Online Notarization, or RON. (No, not Ron Weasley from Harry Potter, though it really does seem pretty magical.)
Remote online notarization companies connect a signer with commissioned notaries public (yes, that’s the official plural of notary public, like attorneys general or culs-de-sac) who are authorized to notarize documents remotely via a webcam.
When I originally started researching this post, 24 states allowed notaries to do RON; 24 had temporary regulations allowing it during COVID, and two had weird limits. Then Connecticut rescinded authorization but ten more states made it permanent. But last week, the House of Representatives passed the Remote Online Notarization Bill, which (assuming it passes the Senate) should make secure online remote notarization much easier to access.
Two of the best known remote online notarization service providers are Notarize and NotaryCam.
First up, Notarize.
Who knew notarization could be so funny?
Download the iOS or Android version of the Notarize app or use your computer’s browser. Then snap a photo of the document and upload it (or upload a PDF, or drag-and-drop the document onto the computer’s browser). Then provide your proof of identity, and connect to the notary via the platform’s webcame. Pricing for individuals starts at only $25.
NotaryCam is similarly priced at $25 (or $79 if you’re outside the US). Your document has to be a PDF, and while you can use a Mac or PC, if you don’t want to fiddle with plugins, use Chrome or Firefox. When mobile, iOS is fine but NotaryCam sounds pretty iffy about using Android.
Both platforms are secure, legal, and operate 24/7/365. For what it’s worth, NotaryCam seems oriented more toward real estate and other professionals than toward consumers; Notarize is a little more intuitive and aimed toward both a Regular Joe consumer audience as well as professional.
Have you ever had adventures in getting something notarized? Please feel free to share in the comments.
Finally, now that you’ve made it through this master class in notarization, you deserve a little fun. If you watch to the end, you’ll find that Inspector Fenwick of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police could have used the services of a notary to figure out who was whom!
Paper Doll Post:
Organize Back-to-School Savings: Tax-Free Holidays & Discount Codes
Photo by Kelli Tungay on Unsplash
Finances are tight these days. (Let’s be real — when aren’t they?) Inflation is frustrating our bank balances, and corporations are reaping record profits, frustrating our sense of fairness and propriety. Energy costs are surging just as it’s ridiculously hot in most of North America (and elsewhere). And while gas prices have dropped 40-straight-days as of the writing of this post, it’s not like that makes it any more delightful to pay at the pump.
And now, shockingly, it’s time to start thinking about organizing for back-to-school shopping.
Depending on where you live, you’re either nodding or looking shocked; if it’s the latter, it’s because you live, like I did when I grew up in Buffalo, New York, where kids don’t go back to school until after Labor Day. So for you, talking about back-to-school in July is like putting up Christmas decorations right after Halloween. (Oy. Never mind.)
The point is, there’s something going on right about now that can help you organize your financial resources for the back-to-school period.
ORGANIZE YOUR FINANCES WITH TAX-FREE HOLIDAYS
Throughout the year, many states have tax-free holiday weekends or weeks, and they are usually clustered in these mid-summer weeks to coincide with the back-to-school season for the southern states, where students return to school in early August, rather than post-Labor Day.
These states generally allow retailers to sell clothing and footwear, school supplies, computers, and sometimes backpacks, books, and other “tangible personal property” without charging sales tax. In my state, that’s a savings of 9.25%. Combine that with various 10%-off to 40%-off sales, and that’s a great opportunity to stock up on necessities.
Seventeen states scheduled back-to-school tax-free holiday weekends or weeks in 2022. If your state is not listed below, consider clicking on the name of your nearest state to be directed to that state’s official tax-free holiday page.
Note: Alabama’s tax-free holiday period has already occurred (July 15-17, 2022, and generally starts on the third Friday in July and ends at midnight on the following Sunday); watch the Alabama Department of Revenue website for 2023’s schedule.
Arkansas (August 6-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and footwear (up to $100); clothing accessories and equipment (up to $50); school and academic art supplies; scholastic instructional materials (including, but not limited to books) (no dollar limit)
Connecticut (August 21-27, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and footwear (up to $100)
Florida (various tax-free dates — see below)
May 14-August 14, 2022: children’s books
July 25-August 7, 2022: Clothing, footwear, and accessories (up to $100); school supplies (up to $50); learning aids and jigsaw puzzles (up to $30); computers and accessories for personal/non-commercial use (up to $1500).
Note: this overlaps with a year-long tax-free Florida holiday on baby/children’s clothing, shoes, and diapers, from July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023.
Illinois (August 5-14, 2022)
Reduced tax rate to 1.25%: Clothing and school supplies (up to $125)
Iowa (August 5-6, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and footwear (up to $100)
Maryland (August 14-20, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing & footwear (up to $100)
Mississippi (July 29-30, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing & footwear (up to $100)
Missouri (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing (up to $100); computers/peripherals (up to $1,500); software (up to $350); graphing calculators (up to $150); school supplies (up to $50)
New Mexico (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and footwear (up to $100); desktop or laptop computers, tablets or notebooks (up to $1,000); computer peripherals/hardware (up to $500); school supplies (up to $30)
Ohio (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing (up to $75); school supplies (up to $20)
Oklahoma (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and footwear (up to $100)
South Carolina (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and shoes (no limit); school supplies (no limit); backpacks (no limit); computers, printers, peripherals, and software (no limit)
Tennessee (July 29-31, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing (up to $100); school and art supplies (up to $100); desktop, laptop, and tablet computers (up to $1,500)
Texas (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing and accessories; footwear; school supplies; and backpacks (each up to $100)
Virginia (August 5-7, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing, accessories, and footwear (up to $100); school supplies (up to $20)
West Virginia (August 5-8, 2022)
Tax-free: Clothing (up to $125 limit); accessories, and footwear (up to $100); school supplies (up to $20)
In most cases, retailers should abide by the discounts or tax-free status whether the purchases are made at brick & mortar stores, online, or by phone.
However, so that you don’t experience any surprises, be sure to double-check that the online/phone venues from which you order understand your state’s tax holiday regulations. (In case you’re wondering, yes, Amazon participates in state sales tax holidays as long as you purchase the products exempted during your state’s tax holiday. And no, I have no idea how Amazon’s computers work that magic. I still haven’t figured out how Kohl’s magically makes my receipt so much less than I’m always expecting!)
Tax-free holiday tips:
- The price limits above generally refer to the price-per-item cost, not your entire purchase. If the per-item limit is $100 and your entire bill for clothing comes to $250, but no one item is more than $100, you’re golden.
- Make a list of what each family member needs before you get to the store. (Check with your school to see if a grade-appropriate supply list has been posted online. If your school does not provide a list prior to the start of the school year, consider an online supply list organized by grade level.) It’s tempting to buy anything that seems like a bargain, but acquiring what you don’t need just because it’s a “deal” is the fast track to clutter.
- Set a budget for each shopping category so that you’re not tempted to go hog-wild, and consider what each of your students might need vs. what you can keep in a central home school supply area for all to share.
- Shopping with smaller children may stress you (and your kids) out, so consider trading shopping and babysitting time with a friend or split babysitter costs while you and your friend hunt for bargains together.
- Let older children participate — use it as an opportunity to practice math skills (“How much is this shirt if it’s marked as 15% off?”) and encourage them in finding good deals on high-quality products. The more responsible they are, perhaps reward them with the amount by which they came in under budget to apply toward something fun.
- Remember to keep your receipts in case you need to return something; note each retailer’s return policy. Again, this is a great opportunity to teach financial and organizing skills. Show them how you calculated your budget and checked the purchases against the bottom line. Have tweens and teens help you take note of return policy dates and file receipts pending any possible returns.
- Remember that tax-free holidays aren’t just for kids! In most cases, there’s a $100 limit on clothing and shoes for any age person. After all, a shirt a 15-year-old can wear might just as easily be worn by a 30-year-old, and there’s very little way to differentiate school supplies from office supplies. (What do you mean grownups aren’t supposed to use unicorn stickers and fuzzy troll pencil toppers?)
- I’m going to say this a second time — set a budget. And stick to it. The point of saving money is to have more of it, not to buy more of what you don’t necessarily need. Focus on needs, then surprise and delight yourself and your kids with a few wants, as well.
And as long as we’re talking about saving money, here are a few discounts of which you might want to take advantage, as long as you’re doing the back-to-school thing.
Bixbee
Nobody likes sales emails, but I have to admit it. Once I learned of Bixbee a few years ago, I became obsessed with their cool kid products, which include backbacks, lunchboxes, sleeping bags, and kids’ accessories.
Bixbee, maker of ergonomically-smart backpacks built with the anatomy of tiny humans in mind, has some products that will charm your kids (and their spines) and keep clutter at bay.
Also, if your kids’ backpacks or lunchboxes are super-cool and fun, they’re less likely to leave them on the bus, or in their gym lockers, or just lose them altogether, which means you won’t have to make duplicate purchases…which means you save money. Whoohoo!
Bixbee also has delightful luggage and duffels for ease of traveling, rain boots and T-shirts, water bottles and just a whole bunch of kid-friendly goofiness.
You didn’t ask me, but of course I have favorites, like the Sparkalicious Ruby Raspberry Butterflyer Backpack
and the Monkey Backpack and the matching Monkey Lunchbox:
Bixbee is having a back-to-school sale. Get 25% off any purchase with the code BACK2SCHOOL but hurry, because this discount code expires on Wednesday, July 27, 2022!
Bixbee is also offering free Standard Shipping (for US customers only) on all orders over $60.00 and a FREE folder and stickers with every backpack order! (Who doesn’t love stickers?)
Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management®
If you’ve been a reader of the Paper Doll blog for a while, then you know that professional organizer Leslie Josel of Order Out of Chaos, is a colleague, friend, and fellow Cornell University alum. And I love every darned thing this smarty-skirt does!
(For more about Leslie, you can read Paper Doll Peeks Behind the Curtain with Superstar Coach, Author & Speaker Leslie Josel. Go. Read. Come back. We’ll wait.)
Paper Doll with Leslie Josel, © 2017 Best Results Organizing
I’ve written many, many times about Leslie’s Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management®. The central concept behind the planner is the need to better enable students to “see” time and all of the related obligations. If you’re brand new to the Academic Planner, you can start here:
The Academic Planner has even won the 2018, 2020, and 2022 Family Choice Award!
The spiral-bound 2022-2023 Academic Planner comes in two sizes: letter-sized planner with after-school planning (8 1/2″ x 11″) and smaller personal-sized with all-day planning (8 1/4″ x 8 1/2″), both for $19.99. Based on an academic year calendar, the planners run July through June.
Four styles of planners in each size
The letter-sized planners with after-school planning come in LimeLight, Pretty In Pink, Blues Brothers, and WhiteOut. The interior pages measure 7” x 11”, offering up more than the typical space for writing down assignments and activities. It has 7 subject boxes and after-school planning capabilities starting at 2p.m., and is ideal for elementary, middle, and high school students and those that are virtual learning or homeschooled.
The smaller, personal-sized planner with all-day planning come in Men in Black, Purple Rain, Yellow Submarine, and AquaMan. They have 6 subject boxes and all-day planning capabilities, starting at 8:00am. These work well for high school, college, and homeschool students and even adults!
Introductory Pages
The front pages, measuring the same size as the front and rear cover of the planner, include:
- a contact information section so a lost planner can be easily returned
- a class schedule (subject, period, instructor, room #, days) to quickly acclimate students for the new year (and give a fellow student, armed with the contact info, an easy way to find the owner at the right classroom and return a lost planner)
- a Welcome Letter from Leslie to parents
- a detailed set of Planner Pointers, providing excellent guiding tips for making smart use of the planner. (My favorite? Writing “No Homework” if none was assigned so the student never has to wonder if he or she just forgot to write something down.)
- a two-page Planner Use Guide, showing the planner in action — noting assignments, reminders (“Get permission slips signed!”), after-school activities and previews for the next week
- a Study Planning Guide to help prepare for tests and quizzes
- a sample Project Planning Guide to help plan long-term assignments
- a two-page School Year at a Glance
Planner Pages
On the first and last (extra-sturdy) full-sized, the Academic Planner has a vertical index page that peeks out from behind (and to the left and right) of the actual planner pages. This index page means that students record their class subjects only once. Then everything on the upper calendar sections of the planner pages lines up with the appropriate class subjects, course by course, horizontally (with days of the week arrayed, vertically) across a two-page layout.
The next row in the smaller planner is for To-Do items by day. In the letter-sized planners, the left and right front pages provide hourly slots from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. for students to log after school activities and obligations, like clubs, athletic practice, rehearsals, and jobs.
Other Features
- At the start of each month, there’s a left-side full-page monthly calendar with space to note major events, holidays, and vacations, and adequately plan longer-term projects.
- The right-side Notes page facing the calendar offers up ample room for planning, notes, and the kinds of serious thoughts only people between 12 and 18 can understand.
- There’s a clear poly pocket at the rear of the planner for safely keeping notes, permission slips, and other documents too small for a student’s binder.
- There are oodles of extras, like a library of printouts, downloads, videos, and “how-tos”, as well as downloadable resources like Project and Study Planning Guides, Time Trackers, Homework Checklists, Planner Pointers, Study Skills Videos.
- A bonus Academic Planner Accessories Pack (sold separately, for $10.99) includes a plastic page marker that clips into the spiral binding, so it’s easy to find the current week in the planner, a set of monthly tabs, and a really bright, sunny set of useful stickers.
Whew! That was a lot. To really do justice to the 2022-2023 Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management®, take a detailed walk-through with Leslie herself. It’s like having a private coaching session!
And since this post is about saving money for back-to-school, use the promo code PLANNER20 at checkout to get 20% off any academic planners you purchase directly from the Order Out of Chaos website. This promo code expires September 30, 2022.
(If you prefer to order through Amazon, the 8 1/2″ x11″ planner and 8 1/2″ x 8 1/4″ planner sell for the same price.)
Enjoy your summer, but remember that a little planning and organizing now can make back-to-school shopping less costly, less stressful, and a bit more sunny!
And, just a reminder if you missed my last post, Paper Doll on Planning & Prioritizing for Leadership, we’re only one week into the free, 3-week, The Leader’s Asset interview series. You can still register and catch my interview this Wednesday, July 27, 2022.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, and I may get a small remuneration (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking through to the resulting pages. The opinions, as always, are my own. (Seriously, who else would claim them?)
Paper Doll Post:
Paper Doll on Planning & Prioritizing for Leadership
You’re used to reading what I have to say about organizing and productivity in the pages of the Paper Doll blog. It might be easy to imagine me as some disembodied robot, typing away. But I am a real (and lively, and talkative) person, and I’ve been delighted to spend the early part of this summer getting to talk about my favorite topics with other experts for the benefit of people interested in guidance on these issues.
In fact, I’ve done four interviews over the past two months, three of which have been for podcasts, which I’ll tell you about later in the post. But today, I’d like to tell you about a really interesting (and FREEEEEE) opportunity for you to learn about planning, prioritizing, and leadership. (And remember, leadership isn’t just about being “in charge” at work. We lead in our homes, in our volunteer areas, and in our communities. Wouldn’t it be nice not to be overwhelmed there, too?)
I’d love for you to join me, along with a few of my beloved productivity colleagues (Frank Buck and Augusto Pinaud, about whom you heard oodles back in Paper Doll Picks: Organizing and Productivity Podcasts), and twenty other specialists for a FREE, 21-day, virtual event.
This event is for those of you who have a desire to accomplish more (of the right things) but have less stress, and to stop feeling stuck or frustrated because you’re not further along. (And since we’ve just come off a five-part series on toxic productivity, you know how that hamster wheel gets us spinning in circles, but not necessarily getting anywhere.)
The official name for this event has so many words in it, you’d think it was a Paper Doll blog post!
The Leader’s Asset: How To Increase Your Leadership Capacity & Reduce Overwhelm Through More Effective Planning & Prioritizing!
Before I forget, you can head over to my special link http://theleadersasset.com/JulieBestry to register. (This isn’t an affiliate link. I don’t get anything out of you registering except the joy of knowing I get dibs on saying I introduced you to this series. But as you’ll see, I’m pretty psyched about it.)
Each of us joined with The Leader’s Asset founder, Robert Barlow of Perpetual Aim (Personal Leadership Solutions), to record video interviews on subjects covering:
- How to plan and prioritize to reduce your overwhelm
- Ways to effectively beat procrastination
- How to accomplish more (of the right things) in less time
- Solutions to gain control over your email
- Tips, tools, and strategies to make planning and prioritizing more effective
- Dealing with distractions and keeping urgent tasks from derailing your focus
- And many more nuggets of wisdom and learning
These are not long, droning PowerPoint presentations. Instead, these are short, information-packed, conversational interviews with zero fluff. Every interview with Robert clocks in at about 20 minutes. (OK, you know I’m a talker, so mine is a few teensy minutes more!)
The point is that you will walk away from each interview with actionable strategies you can use right away and some newly-tweaked mindsets that will, as Robert says, TAKE YOU TO THE NEXT LEVEL!
So, would you (or your spouse, or your bestie, co-workers, and pals) like to hear from a diverse group of experts on how to be more successful leaders by really grasping the whole magic of planning and prioritizing?
How does it work? Once you register, you’ll get a welcome email, and then beginning Monday, July 18th, you’ll get an email each morning with a link to that day’s interview. Again, the 21-day series is free, but you’ll also have a chance to upgrade to a VIP package, with lifetime access to the recordings and some special opportunities Robert has in store.
So come on and register for The Leader’s Asset Interview Series.
Curious about who else is participating besides me, Frank, and Augusto? I don’t want to spoil any of Robert’s surprises, but I can give you a preview of some of the variety of talent he’s put together for this series, which includes:
- Bob Wendover has built a business helping people beat burnout, improve workplace problem solving skills, and develop critical thinking capacity.
- Oleg Konovalov is a global thought leader, author, business educator, consultant, and C-suite coach. He’s known as the DaVinci of Visionary Leadership, and uses his research to help entrepreneurs and managers identify their strategic needs in the terms of leadership.
- Shanda Miller is a leadership coach, trainer, and writer, and author of the book From Supervisor to Super Leader.
- Eva Medilek is a coach who teaches high performance success habits so her clients can leave behind their burnout, overwhelm, and exhaustion.
- Divya Parekh combines her biopharmaceutical career with experience as a coach, author, consultant, and speaker to help individuals become better leaders.
And that’s just scratching the surface. So I invite you to come play in The Leader’s Asset Interview Series sandbox with me, Robert Barlow, and these experts. Take 20 minutes a day to get some gems on how to improve your planning and prioritizing so you can work smarter (and healthier), lead better, and enjoy it all more.
UPDATE: The schedule has been announced, and my interview will go live on Wednesday, July 27, 2022! (Frank’s is Tuesday July 19th; Augusto’s is August 6th. But register to find out the whole schedule and start watching on Monday, July 18th!)
DIDN’T I SAY SOMETHING ABOUT PODCASTS?
I did!
As I mentioned at the top, I’ve been delighted to have been interviewed for three podcasts recently. In my own way, I’ve been working on different aspects of “leadership” in terms of bringing productivity and organizing to a wider audience, beyond my Paper Doll family, clients, and speaking audiences.
I’ve written recently about how I’ve just recertified as a Certified Evernote Expert (formerly Evernote Certified Consultant). In the next month or so (schedule: TBA), I’m excited that I’ll be a guest of the fabulous Ray Sidney-Smith on his new season of the Getting More Done with Evernote podcast. Ray always asks insightful questions and our mutual geeking out over Evernote will make you feel like you were in the room with us.
Toward the end of the summer, I am agog to report that I’ll be a guest on The NAPO Stand Out Podcast with the savvy and chic Clare Kumar! We had an amazing and free-wheeling conversation about some of my favorite organizing topics!
And bringing this all full circle, because Dr. Frank Buck was the one who introduced me to Robert Barlow for the interview series, I was recently on an episode of Frank Buck: Productivity for Total Control & Peace of Mind. He even named the episode “Julie Bestry: Don’t Apologize…Organize!” and you know how I love that!
Listen to the podcast at the show link or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to get your podcast mojo going, and lookie, the YouTube video is embedded below. The magic of the internet! (But hey, if you enjoy what we have to say, please click through to YouTube and leave a comment so Frank can feel the love, too!)
So, it may be the lazy, hazy days of summer, but I’m trying to keep you entertained and informed on all things about organizing and productivity.
Oh, and if you sign up for The Leader’s Asset Interview Series, please let me know (so I can do a happy dance), and feel free to come back to this post and let me know any gems you learn from the interviews, whether mine or from one of the other experts.
Happy summer!
Paper Doll Post:
Toxic Productivity Part 5: Technology and a Hungry Ghost
THE MANY TENDRILS OF TOXIC PRODUCTIVITY
I checked in with a friend the other day to see how her new job was going. Her company, an international conglomerate, had laid off several people over the past six months, including my friend, but also did some internal hiring. She’d been excited about getting the new job, but seemed blue when we spoke.
“I’ll be honest,” she told me, “if I hadn’t already worked for this company for years, I’d think I was incompetent. This is really hard.” My friend, a veteran of many, many promotions for merit, is definitely not incompetent. It turns out that only one person had ever held this position before, and was fired after being unable to keep up with the demands.
When I hear these stories from my clients, the first thing I do is get a sense of whether the problem is that someone needs more support or guidance at work. In terms of support, even though she’s at the same company, my friend’s work situation is different, and she’s no longer got the support of a team structure; rather, everyone is on his or her own, with no cross-training and no backup. The company still seems to have unreasonable expectations of how much can be humanly accomplished, as we discussed at the start of this series, in Toxic Productivity In the Workplace and What Comes Next.
Next, she and I talked about the Pareto Principle (AKA: the 80/20 Rule, which we discussed last week in Toxic Productivity, Part 4: Find the Flip Side of Productivity Hacks) and I asked my friend if she’d talked with her boss about priorities, and what the most important aspects of the job needed to be right now.
Remember, 80% of the success comes from 20% of the effort, so finding that 20% can eliminate a lot of the stress and busy-work, creating more mental energy to tackle other aspects of the work.
The Pareto Principle says 80% of the success comes from 20% of the effort, so finding that 20% can eliminate a lot of the stress and busy-work, creating more mental energy to tackle other aspects of the work. Share on XI pointed out that, as a valued employee, and as the second person to try to tackle this role, she might be in a position to (gently) point out these unreasonable expectations. (Yes, this is a touchy issue, but it’s the best way to determine if the problem is bad management practices or merely lack of corporate awareness of how many human-hours it takes to accomplish certain tasks.)
My friend then noted that a colleague of hers, another “island” unto himself in a position similar to herss, has been in his role for about a year and a half. Apparently, this guy regularly works until midnight and starts again before traditional work hours, and works through the weekends.
If you’ve been reading this series all the way through, you may agree with me that this is a sign that the worker has internalized the unsustainable expectations and toxic productivity demands of the company.
This isn’t just a problem for my friend’s co-worker. Yes, he’ll probably burn out, which will be bad for him. It’s bad for my friend (and everyone else at her level) because workers with families, non-work obligations and, y’know, lives, can’t reasonably live up to this automaton-like worker-bee behavior. Nor should they try. So, the worker who has internalized toxic productivity (and who may or may not have productivity dysmorphia), is contributing to the escalating expectations for unsustainable productivity throughout the division, even throughout the company!
In other words, he’s screwing over his colleagues, who are now left positioned between having inferiority complexes and developing productivity dysmorphia to compensate (thereby risking their own mental health, their relationships, and more) or having to leave the company feeling like failures, and the company will need to hire new workers and the cycle will begin again. Oy.
Such is the state of many modern workplaces. Terrifying, isn’t it?
And, as we have discussed over the last several weeks, a corporate structure isn’t necessary for this to take place. There’s a hustle culture out there for all of us who work on our own, solopreneurs and small business owners alike, who are cowed by common practices into believing that nothing we are doing is enough, and that we need to keep up with the Joneses (our colleagues or competitors, and not merely our neighbors) at all cost.
EMBRACE NEW VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
The drive to deliver — to produce — misses the point. I posit that as much as you may (or may not) enjoy creating, your purpose on the planet isn’t to produce documents or deliver services or create or to make money. Your purpose is to enjoy yourself and help the people you love enjoy themselves, too.
We’re here to be fulfilled, not to produce widgets, and if enough of us demand that we be treated (and treat others) as humans rather than producers, we might achieve this very thing.
This can feel like pretty hippy-dippy advice in 2022, but I stand by it.
So, first, let’s start with the wisdom high performance coach Sarah Arnold-Hall puts forth about results, not hours.
Let’s start valuing results created, not hours worked. pic.twitter.com/yebU0Zwrq8
— Sarah Arnold-Hall (@saraharnoldhall) May 13, 2022
Now, on its own, this could create a huge feedback loop into productivity toxicity. Produce more, create more, do more! Grrrr. Arrrrrgggh. But we’re not going to do that.
Instead, we’re going to bear in mind what we learned in Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset about the necessity of downtime. Those hours when we’re not working are as important as, if not more important than, the hours we are working.
The task-positive brain network, which we use to take all of our accumulated knowledge and turn it into something useful, helps us focus our attention, arrive at solutions to problems, and confidently make decisions. But we can’t do any of that if we don’t also make use of our default mode network, the way our brain blisses out and thinks about anything except the problem at hand when we’re sleeping, resting, relaxing, and enjoying our loved ones and life.
So, once you accept that success isn’t about the hours worked but the worth of what you’ve done in those hours, you have to pivot to understanding that more and more of your hours have to be given over to the downtime that allows you to create anything worthwhile. Recognizing the finitude of life is key to that attitude change. (Remember that when you get to the end of this post!)
So, what have we learned about healthy productivity?
- It’s not about spending all of your hours on work.
- To make the work you do accomplish valuable, you need to change your mindset and have more downtime.
- Downtime isn’t scrolling through TikTok or Netflix, but truly letting your brain rest and recover — through non-competitive exercise, better sleep, eschewing multitasking, increasing opportunities for a quiet mind, and asking yourself the essential questions about the life you’re currently living and how it compares to the one you truly want — as we discussed in Toxic Productivity Part 3: Get Off the To-Do List Hamster Wheel.
- We can use the same productivity tools designed to help us overcome procrastination and get more done to slow ourselves down to the speed of life. This includes embracing better and smaller (atomic) habits, using the Pareto Principle to focus on what’s truly worthy of being a priority, employing the Pomodoro Technique and block scheduling to focus our work time and ensure our break time.
— Liz Fosslien (@fosslien) June 23, 2022
What else can we do?
CONSIDER TECHNOLOGY’S ROLE
It’s easy to think that technology is essential to productivity. Look at how much more humanity accomplished after the Industrial Revolution vs. when we had an agrarian society. How much more could we accomplish with telephones than when we had to wait for the postal service or telegrams? Certainly we got much more accomplished once we added email to our resources, right? (cough, cough) And surely we’ve reached a pinnacle of productivity now that we have Slack and Asana?
Hopefully, you detected my sarcasm. Yes, technology yields vast improvements in our ability to communicate quickly (if not always clearly, as the multigenerational confusion over emoji and whether ending sentences with periods is an insult have proven), but all of these aspects of technology have led to the always-on misery we discussed at the beginning of the series. France gets it; most of Europe gets it. The US does not yet get it.
We have an inalienable right to disconnect, but it’s going to take all of us, together, to stand up and keep secure that right.
Communication technology is not the only problem.
Along with communication technology, these last few decades have seen a growth in productivity technology, from software and apps that help us brainstorm, assign ourselves (and others) tasks, and conquer our foibles and deficiencies in terms of procrastination, motivation, focus, capturing information, organizing our thoughts, collaborating on projects, and so on.
I am not a Luddite. I believe in the power of technology to make things easier, but sometimes we’re making the wrong things easier. Take collaboration. While Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, historians (including Pauline Maier in American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence) have shown how the handwritten edits suggested by the members of the Second Continental Congress became a complicated collaboration.
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In a document listing colonial grievances against the King George III, members of the Congress made Jefferson take out references to slavery and put in references to a Supreme Being (and fishing rights). The handwriting was that of Secretary Charles Thomson; he controlled the document’s additions, deletions, and revisions requested and/or demanded by the cacophony of voices representing 13 colonies.
Now imagine that same collaborative product in Microsoft Word’s Track Changes or Google Docs’ comment section. Now multiply the different voices and competing methods listed on this Wikipedia entry listing types of collaborative software. (I’ll wait while you scroll.) If you know how to be productive in one technology, you might still be flummoxed in another.
The number, variety, complexity, and interoperability (and lack thereof) of technology solutions can be overwhelming.
Have you ever heard about a new task app and wondered if it could be the solution to all of your troubles? Have you tried Todoist? Anydo? TeuxDeux? Remember the Milk? Things 3? Google Tasks? What about more complex productivity suites, like Basecamp? Trello? Clickup? Asana?
In case you were wondering if I’d suggest one app to rule them all, I’m afraid that’s not the case.
The truth is, the best productivity app is the one you’ll use. The one you’ll commit to learning, commit to using, and the one you won’t “cheat” on when another shiny app starts flirting.
The truth is, the best productivity app is the one you'll use. The one you'll commit to learning, commit to using, and the one you won't 'cheat' on when another shiny app starts flirting. Share on XUnfortunately, some productivity technology overwhelms even the most diligent users. This may be because the information we get out of our productivity technology is only as good as the information we put in, and we humans are already overwhelmed.
All of these apps, working at the speed of light (and life), can’t prioritize for us. We capture tasks with the click of a button, but we are so pressed for time (and productivity) that we fail to take the requisite moments to figure out what work has value and what is busywork.
So, are we supposed to get rid of technology altogether to combat toxic productivity?
Remember how I said I wasn’t a Luddite? Well, I’m not asking you to be one either. Chances are, if you work for a company that you don’t own, you’re stuck with some technology required by your workplace. But in the areas where you do have control over which types of technology you use, I often suggest that my clients put technology completely aside for a little while.
If you’ve got a task app or other tech that works well for you, stick with it. But if you feel beaten down and bruised by the very tech that’s supposed to keep your head above water, try slowing everything down.
- Go analog with your time displays. Wear an analog watch, or set your fancy Apple Watch or Fitbit to display time in an analog manner. Do the same with the display for the clock app on your phone. Seeing time as it ticks by will help you appreciate the finitude of time and feel more in tune with how much you can reasonably accomplish in an hour or a day. (You might want to brush up on Back-to-School Solutions for the Space-Time Continuum for more ideas.)
- Opt for paper over tech to learn key productivity skills. I’m a Certified Evernote Expert, so I realize all of the excellent benefits of collating your clipped websites, inbound emails, saved articles, etc., digitally, tagging them, and organizing them into notebooks. But when you’re overwhelmed, sometimes having your resources, your printed instructions, and other task-triggering action paperwork right in front of you, without need for WiFi or even electricity, can help you slow down and focus without the buzz of the digital world.
One of the many reasons I recommend tickler files for my overwhelmed clients is that learning the process of looking at task-triggering papers and making qualitative decisions (regarding priorities) and chronological decisions (regarding when you can reasonably accomplish specific tasks) is an essential skill for improving productivity in a healthy way. It’s the reason I wrote Tickle Yourself Organized.
- Consider bullet journaling. I’ll be honest, bullet journaling stresses me out. I understand that it’s not necessary to embrace the fancy, artistic designs some people use, but the very hands-on, tangible customization options overwhelm me, and the idea is to achieve healthy productivity by removing overwhelm. But I’m not you. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people swear by bullet journaling for tracking tasks and other information. They can’t all be wrong.
PULL IT ALL TOGETHER AND HALT A HUNGRY GHOST
Hopefully, over this past month, you’ve come to recognize that not only are you not a robot, but that it’s unacceptable for anyone — your company, your clients, your mother-in-law, or you — to expect non-stop labor from you.
If machines don’t operate at 100%, why do we expect so much from ourselves?
— Junhan (@junhanchin) May 24, 2022
You’re a living, breathing human being. But you may have a ghost in your machine.
In Brad Stulberg‘s recent post The Constant Restlessness You Feel Has a Name, he describes how many of us experience a constant grind he calls “heroic individualism.”
Heroic individualism says that you will never have enough, be enough, or do enough. It is an endless gauntlet of more. While it may lead to decent short-term performance, long-term, it is a recipe for disaster. This is because long-term fulfillment depends upon things that are inherently inefficient and unproductive, at least on acute timescales.
Sound familiar?
When you look at the ten symptoms of heroic individualism that Stulberg lays out, some of it bears a striking resemblance to toxic productivity and Anna Codreo-Rado‘s perception of productivity dysmorphia, such as:
- Low-level anxiety and a sensation of always being rushed or in a hurry — if not physically, then mentally.
- Not always wanting to be on, but struggling to turn it off and not feeling good when you do.
- Feeling too busy, but also restless when you have open time and space.
- Successful by conventional standards, yet feeling like you’re never enough.
Stulberg’s describes the Buddhist concept of the hungry ghost:
The hungry ghost has an endless stomach. He keeps on eating, stuffing himself sick, but he never feels full. It’s a severe disorder.
The modern world that so many of us inhabit depends on the creation of hungry ghosts. But you, me, all of us can choose to opt out of this game. We don’t have to become hungry ghosts. We simply need to step back and reflect upon what it is that we actually want. Simple, sure. But not necessarily easy.
To combat this hungry ghost, this toxic productivity, this productivity dysmorphia, Stulberg recommends the concept of groundnessness.
His book, The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds—Not Crushes—Your Soul, combines research from psychology, neuroscience, and sociology (as we looked at in the first three posts in this Toxic Productivity series), as well as religious and philosophical teachings from Buddhism, Taoism, and our old friend-of-Seneca, Stoicism.
The first of Stulberg’s five points of groundedness is having a realistic sense of where you’re starting on this journey, which I’d argue includes comprehending the role we play in letting toxic productivity into our institutions and our lives.
You can catch up on any part of the series here:
Toxic Productivity In the Workplace and What Comes Next
Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset
Toxic Productivity Part 3: Get Off the To-Do List Hamster Wheel
Toxic Productivity, Part 4: Find the Flip Side of Productivity Hacks
and for other perspectives on toxic productivity, you might wish to read:
What is toxic productivity? And 5 tips to overcome it (Trello)
When Doing is Your Undoing: Toxic Productivity (Psychology Today)
Put Avoiding Toxic Productivity At The Top Of Your To-Do List (Vogue UK)
Feeling Burnt Out? Meet Toxic Productivity & Grind Culture with Rest
Thank you for coming along on this five-week tour of how we (individually and as a society) are struggling with unsustainable expectations surrounding productivity. I hope you will share these (and other Paper Doll) posts with those whom you feel the material will help.
And if you’ll pardon my indulgence after putting 15,000 words into this topic, I’d like to share part of the lyrics of my favorite song, Viena by Billy Joel, which has some wise things to say about this topic.
Slow down, you crazy child
You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you’re so smart, well, tell me
Why are you still so afraid? Mm
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?
You’d better cool it off before you burn it out
You’ve got so much to do
And only so many hours in a day
But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through, ooh
When will you realize Vienna waits for you?
Paper Doll Post:
Toxic Productivity, Part 4: Find the Flip Side of Productivity Hacks
If you reside in the United States or Canada, you’re coming off the end of a long holiday weekend, an opportunity to rest, relax, and regenerate.
Do you feel relaxed? Or do you feel the itch to be accomplishing something on your to-do list? Do you feel that whatever you got done last week might not quite be enough, and that by taking an actual weekend off — not just two whole weekend days, but an extra holiday — you’re coasting? Cheating? If so, you definitely won’t be the only one.
PREVIOUSLY ON PAPER DOLL…
Throughout this series on toxic productivity, we’ve looked at what society can do to vanquish unsustainable expectations, how we can change our outlook and mindset, and what we can physically do to loosen the ropes with which we’ve bound ourselves. Before we go any further, I encourage you to catch up on the concepts and references we’ve looked at so far:
Toxic Productivity In the Workplace and What Comes Next
Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset
Toxic Productivity Part 3: Get Off the To-Do List Hamster Wheel
We can lobby for changes in societal expectations regarding excessive corporate demands on our productivity. We can read wisdom (and get therapy) to examine how we’ve internalized toxic belief systems and developed, as Anna Codrea-Rado calls it, productivity dysmorphia.
We can even recognize the finitude, or shortness, of life, and get off the hamster wheel by adding mindfulness and rest (in terms of non-competitive exercise) and more recuperative sleep, eliminating multitasking, and digging deeply to figure out what we want out of life and who we are.
But if none of that floats your boat, even if I’ve convinced you that toxic productivity is a danger to you, your loved ones, and society, these measures may just be too hard to incorporate in the life you’re already living. Trust me, I get it.
USING THE PRODUCTIVITY HACKS YOU KNOW AND LOVE
So, today, we’re going to look at the same productivity strategies, tactics, and “hacks” that are recommended to conquer lack of productivity — whether that’s a problem with procrastination, prioritization, or planning —and see if we can find ways to use them to stem the tide of toxic productivity.
Start At the Atomic Level
In James Clear‘s Atomic Habits, he posits that all of our outcomes — our productivity (for good or ill), our self-care, our financial state — are a “lagging result” of our habits. In other words, there’s a cumulative effect of what we do that, when repeated over and over, leads to where we’ve arrived.
To achieve what we want, Clear believes that we generally either try to change our habits in the wrong way, or we try to change the wrong things. Clear notes that we approach things in three ways:
- We try to change our outcomes (achieve more work, make more money, lose a certain amount of weight).
- We try to change our habits.
- We try to change our identities — including our belief systems, our views of the world, and our self-images.
Heady stuff. But it doesn’t work.
Clear’s approach is to flip the order and the magnitude of these strategies, and start by building identity-based habits, focusing on who we aspire to be (the non-smoker, the half-marathon runner, the person who can feel proud of their work output without working ourselves to death), and making itty-bitty, teeny-weeny changes at the atomic level (think of atoms, or even sub-atomic particles, not atomic as in “big boom bomb”).
To Clear’s mind, starting with these small steps helps you make the leap from “I’m the kind of person who wants be X” to “I am the kind of person who does X” to “I’m the type of person who is X.” (No, unfortunately, it will not help make Paper Doll a ballerina.)
From a productivity perspective, Clear builds on the now-famous research of Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.
That research focused on four stages: Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. From a toxic productivity perspective, the cue may be some kind of request in our inbox or voicemail, or even seeing what one of our colleagues is doing, and feeling like we have to learn to emulate that behavior.
That feeling of “Ooooh, my successful colleague just started a YouTube channel and is getting all of this attention. I want to feel respected and admired, so I need to add videos to my repertoire of what I deliver to the world.”
The response in this case might be you buying video equipment, writing scripts, and pushing yourself beyond your capacity to start developing these videos, and the reward might be the sense of achievement of having completed it. You’ve satisfied that craving! Yay!
Wait, yay? Are you sure?
Rewards are supposed to teach us which cues and cravings will make us feel good. But remember what we said a few weeks ago about the hedonic treadmill, how you get used to a certain level of productivity and thus no longer feel any level of excitement or satisfaction? Time after time, your automatic process of building your habits may be contributing to your sense of productivity dysmorphia!
So, how can we use Clear’s ideas to help us create better habits that will separate ourselves from toxic productivity? Clear’s book is too packed with wisdom for me to cover its value in a blog post, but here are two methods to try, based on his teachings. His guidance is in bold type.
To embrace healthier habits that will get you away from the cues to keep working:
Make It Obvious — If you want to get in the habit of taking a walking break at lunch, put your lunch bag (or wallet) on top of your walking shoes.
Make It Attractive — Arrange to take a yoga class or go for an adult beverage (or ice cream, or an afternoon tea) with a good friend. Make taking a break social to remind you of when your life was fun. Then do fun stuff!
Make It Easy — Block time on your schedule for non-work things so nobody can steal your self-care by making a Calendly request for time that isn’t available. That person will never know that you’re not in some other “productive” meeting.
Make It Satisfying — Make those get-off-the-hamster-wheel experiences delightful; if you’re an introvert, don’t schedule social things that will steal your energy, and if you’re a hiker, don’t book a yoga class because it seems socially preferable. You do you, boo!
To break your bad (toxic) productivity habits and get off that hamster wheel of constantly feeling like your value depends on your output:
Make It Invisible — To reduce your exposure so you don’t experience the cues to constantly feel like you’re not doing enough, reduce your attention to requests when you don’t need to deal with them. Turn off your notifications unless you’re waiting for a particular response. Stop checking your email every 15 minutes; check it in the morning, right after lunch, and about an hour before the end of the day. Otherwise, focus on your priorities, not other people’s.
Yep, this is the same advice I’d give you if I were encouraging you to be more productive; the point isn’t to be less productive, per se, but to feel less driven by those cues to feel like your value equals your productivity!
Make It Unattractive — The point here is to re-adjust your mindset (as we discussed in the second post in this series). You want to accent the benefits and importance of avoiding the bad habits (of working through lunch, checking email when your kid is talking to you, etc.). Maybe a photo posting your last blood pressure test or the lyrics to Cats In the Cradle will remind you of what hyperfocusing on productivity costs you. (Wait, you don’t know that song? Grab a tissue!)
Make It Difficult — This is about increasing friction so it’s harder to work long hours and feel obligated to keep going when you’re completely wrung out. Set your computer to turn off every day at 5 (or 6 p.m., or 4:30 p.m.). Delete one-third to one-half of the available time slots from your appointment scheduling software. Prioritize yourself on the schedule (and see the time-blocking section, below).
Make It Unsatisfying — You know what makes you tick. Would the social cringe of failing to knock off work and go home (after you’d promised to do so) do the trick? For good or ill, the fear of disappointing your spouse might not be enough, but support from an accountability partner, someone without the guarantee of unconditional love? Could work!
Normally, we’d use accountability to get us working, but sometimes, having a body-double for the “last hour” of the day will ensure we shut down when we need to. If that’s the case for you, reread Count on Accountability: 5 Productivity Support Solutions for some key ways to get help honoring your goal to respect yourself, your time, and your value.
Two P’s Against One: Conquer Toxic Productivity With the Pareto Principle and the Pomodoro Technique
There are two popular strategies in the productivity realm we experts apply to help people not only achieve more, but more of the right thing. Sneakily, these two concepts can also help you get off that hedonic treadmill.
Let’s start with the Pareto Principle, which you might know as the 80/20 Rule. It comes from a theory of economics that says that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes, and it’s been found that 80% of successes come from 20% of efforts or sources. This is one of those weird concepts that while not always perfectly true, is surprisingly accurate.
Freelancers will find that 80% of their money comes from 20% of their client base. All those toys your kids are actually playing with (and the apps on your phone that you actually use)? About 20% of them are what’s yielding the most activity.
Use the Pareto Principle to figure out what of the work you’re doing is actually the vital work. The deep work (in the words of Cal Newport). The meaningful work. The work that appears in the Eisenhower Matrix’s “important and urgent” quadrant!
Look at your list of everything you accomplished today. Wait, you don’t know what you did?
You probably added “done” things to the to-do things so you could cross them off. But if not, look at your outbound emails, your calendar, your “recent documents” and “recent spreadsheets.” Going forward, you might track your time with an analog list on paper or software like Toggl or Rescue Time.
Look at everything you’re doing and measure the value — is it financially remunerative (does it pay?!), is it helping you grow professionally or personally, is it emotionally rewarding? It’s very likely you’ll find that the vast majority of your work’s value is coming from 20% (OK, or even 30% or 40%) of your output.
Use the Pareto Principle to give yourself permission (there’s another P-word!) to stop doing everything! With luck, you’ll be able to appreciate all that you have accomplished, focus less on what you didn’t complete, and eliminate a bit more of that productivity dysmorphia.
Same results. Different expectations. pic.twitter.com/fXbf6gY1AA
— Janis Ozolins (@OzolinsJanis) March 27, 2022
Next, let’s look at the Pomodoro Technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo. We’ve discussed this many times on the pages of Paper Doll, most recently in Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? 5 Strategies to Cope With Pandemic Time Dilation, but at it’s most reductive, you decide what you want to work on, you set a timer for 25 minutes, and you work on just that thing until the timer goes off. Then take a break.
This is another tactic we productivity gurus use to help clients get their butts in the chair; to conquer inertia, we encourage someone try just five minutes (on the treadmill, writing a blog post, studying a chapter), and more often than not, this is enough to get someone over the hump and keep the mojo going.
However, the Pomodoro Technique also works to dissipate toxic productivity because breaks are built in. In usual circumstances, the Pomodoro-er is thinking, “Sigh, OK, I have to do this. But in 25 minutes I get to take a break.” To the person who struggles to let go of their sense of worthiness being tied to their output, being forced to take a break is a real eye-opener! Permission to stop working is one thing; being required to stop is a much bigger deal!
For more on the Pomodoro Technique:
Take It From Someone Who Hates Productivity Hacks—the Pomodoro Technique Actually Works
Explore Being a Kid Again: See How Playing with Blocks Can Flummox Toxic Productivity
We’ve already talked a lot about time blocking. Your best bet is to review:
Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity
Paper Doll Shares Secrets from the Task Management & Time Blocking Summit 2022
How to Use Block Scheduling to Revamp Your Workflow (Wired)
Usually, when we discuss time blocking, we’re trying to fit as much into our limited, valuable, time as possible, to make sure we create homes for all the work that’s necessary to do. But we’ve already established that not everything we’re doing is of equal value.
When we want to circumvent toxic productivity, reduce busy-ness in favorite of doing our most important work, and get a hearty mix of what we discussed back in the second week, we need to think about our brains!
In that post, I explained that using our central executive network (think: executive function, not CEOs), or task-positive brain network, activates to help us use our memories of previously-acquired information to comprehend new information, focus our attention, come up with solutions, and make decisions.
But our brains also need to operate in the default mode network — it’s what your brain is thinking about when nobody’s expecting anything from you.
What does that have to do with time blocking? Simple — block time to do all those things we talked about in Toxic Productivity Part 3: Get Off the To-Do List Hamster Wheel that turn active the brain off for a little while. Just blocking your time, without considering downtime, will let you get a lot done, maybe even the right stuff done, but it won’t reduce that drive to be “always on.”
In his July 3rd email, How to Be a Productivity Ninja author Graham Allcott talked three ways to use his attention: to create, to collaborate, and to chill.
When you block your time, “create” is going to be anything that achieves that deep work, that 20ish% of effort to yield the 80ish% of success. Allcott says, “When I’m in Create mode, my mindset is disciplined, closed and distraction-free.”
“Collaborate” is as you’d guess, all of those meetings and calls and emails, those Zooms and those moments you’re in shared documents. And it’s the collaboration (whether anticipated or unanticipated) that often steals the time we need to spend on the other two C’s.
And, obviously, “chill” is about engaging the default mode network by disengaging from the task-positive brain network.
When you put together your time blocks, be sure to consider all three elements. Balancing your creative and collaborative time with your chilling time will help your step off the hamster wheel and live a healthier, more fulfilled, and less toxic life.
Momentum matters more than perfection. pic.twitter.com/ju76b7gsqj
— Sarah Arnold-Hall (@saraharnoldhall) April 6, 2022
Give yourself a break. Give yourself some grace. Give yourself a more organized space, more planning time on the calendar, and more opportunities to “win” by not expecting so damned much of yourself.
With so much to consider regarding toxic productivity, there’s actually one more post to round out the series. We’ll be looking at how tools, whether analog or digital, can help or hinder us as we seek to reduce the toxicity of our productivity. And then we’ll close with a little philosophizing and sum up all we’ve discussed.
Until then, I hope you’ve found some of this helpful to reduce any of the unwelcome stress you may feel as you approach the second half of this year.
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