Best Results Organizing

Last month, I was approached by a representative of Paperless Post* to see if I might like to look at their offerings and perhaps share with Paper Doll readers. My first thought was, “Haven’t I already written about Paperless Post?”

And yep, I had. But it was in 2012! I’d written Paper Doll on Paperless vs. Less Paper: Send to Kindle, iPrint, and Paperless Post. Since that post went live, Rover Curiosity landed on Mars, we learned what twerking was, royal bathrobe model Prince George was born, the word “selfie” hadn’t yet been added to the dictionary, and nobody had asked, “What Does the Fox Say?”

Things have changed a lot since 2012, and so has Paperless Post. Back in 2009, the company started developing ways to provide aesthetically appealing invitations online. Nowadays, that not necessarily any big whoop, but back then, it was fairly novel. 

Imagine it’s set to be a beautiful weekend and the strawberries on your estate are ripe for the picking. It occurs to you to invite everyone in your little village to a strawberry-picking party: the secret object of your affections, a former nanny and a too-popular-for-his-own-good gentleman (whom you suspect are having a secret romance), local (if annoying) newlyweds, and the nanny’s loquacious but long-suffering aunt. (Yes, this is the Box Hill picnic scene in the Jane Austen novel Emma, but let’s go with it.)

You could send invitations by mail, but they wouldn’t get to everyone in time. You could create a Facebook post, but the nanny’s aunt is mad at Zuckerberg, and anyway, Facebook just doesn’t meet your aesthetic tastes. So what do you do? You create online invitations that can get to everyone two seconds after you design them, and get your RSVP’s in real time. No stamps and no schlepping off to the post office when you could be planning a strawberry-themed picnic menu.

THE DETAILS

Not planning any parties, Austenesque or otherwise, I focused on Paperless Post’s online card offerings, and sent one to see how the process worked.

After sending, I went to my email inbox and saw a miniaturized version of the front of the card I’d sent with options to view the tracking (to see who had received it), read and reply to any comments, edit it, and even add new recipients.

According to the recipient of the above card, his email showed a picture of the envelope with the top third of the card peeking out. (When I created the card, I had the option of eschewing an envelope or picking a different color interior liner, and I could have addressed the envelope, but the whole advantage of online cards is that you’re more likely to be able to find someone’s email address than street address these days.)

If I click on “View the card,” I can see what the recipient can see. The card sort of jumps out of the envelope, and the envelope moves to the edge of the screen; the center of the screen is given over to the front of the card, which flips to the back to reveal the message. Clicking a tiny swirling circle graphic lets you keep flipping between the front and the back. (In order to protect Phil’s privacy, you’re seeing a version going to me, from me.)

After this, I got a little giddy, sending cards to friends and to myself in order to get a complete sense of how things worked in Paperless Post. I sent a card to friend of the blog, Professional Daily Manager Nanette Duffey of Organized Instincts.

Then I sent one (thematically similar – I think it was lunchtime) to myself:

Paperless Post has gorgeous and fun creations that are just like what you’d find in some fancy, big city, high end stationers. It’s just not on paper. Wares include:

Greeting Cards – Got holidays? Because Paperless Post does. Their holidays cards cover: Rosh Hashanah, Diwali (seriously, when did you last see a good Diwali card?), Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas/Holiday, Kwanzaa, New Year, Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, Purim (my personal favorite!), St. Patrick‘s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Ramadan.

They also have all-types-of-occasion cards designs including those for:

• Thank you
• Birthday
• Graduation
• Just because
• Congratulations
• Love and romance
• Sympathy
• Anniversary
• Apology (Why do so few people send apology cards? As an aside, check out the book, Why Won’t You Apologize?: Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts by Harriet Lerner. There is no better resource for organizing your thoughts surrounding giving and getting apologies.)
• Get well
• Good luck
• Encouragement

My favorites are the designs in Paperless Post’s Hello!Lucky line, which include cards, invitation, and stationery they describe as “playfully exuberant with a touch of mid-century nostalgia, the work of sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle exudes a childlike glee.”

Announcement Cards – for births, graduations, weddings, and moves

Thank You Notes – You did read my prior post, Gratitude, Mr. Rogers, and How To Organize a Thank You Note, right? Just look at the bevy of thank you note options!

Birthday Cards and Invitations – From the typical birthday cards for “him” or “her” and belated cards for adults and children to milestone birthdays to quinceañeras.

Wedding – Just got engaged? Paperless Post starts you off with a variety of Save the Date cards, moves you along to shower and party invitations, then invitations for the rehearsal dinner and wedding brunch, and finally actual wedding invitations.

Wedding hosts and guests are equally covered, with announcement cards, thank you notes, wedding party requests, and congratulatory notes.

Invitations – This is where Paperless Post began, and they haven’t lost their mojo. There are far too many categories of Paperless Post invitation categories to even mention, but whether you want to have a 4th of July bash or cocktail party, a housewarming or a bar mitzvah, a political fundraiser or a Game of Thrones season finale viewing party, it’s all there. And it’s not just about the casual parties. There’s a whole “Professional” category for launches and charity events, holidays and retirement parties, and more.

Stationery – From personalized stationery that looks like what, on paper, we used to call informal cards to nice “stuff that classes up the joint” to children’s stationery, there are all manner of digital versions of the stationery that would likely just sit in your desk drawer if they were paper versions.

Flyers – This is a new feature, and seems perfect for the Instagram crowd. It’s a bit of a cross between an invitation and a web page, and it lets you create a site for your event and then use a shareable link to let guests know about it. Add the link to display it on social media, or send it to your whole email list (or a few favored guests) or in text messages. Guests can RSVP directly from the flyer page so you can keep track of the expected turnout and figure out how many canapés to have the caterer make (or how many pizzas to order).

The snazzy professional designs make it simple to create an event page filled with all the necessary details while still creating a .gif or photo buzz.  Choose your color palette, select page styles and cool text effects, and then just input the event details and don’t even worry about having enough space. You can use as much text as you want, and even add travel directions, hyperlinks, and whatever else your peeps need to know. (For a limited time, the Flyer option is free, so if you’ve got any special events on the horizon, or want to throw a quickie Independence Day bash, here’s your shot.)

WHAT IF YOU WANT PAPER CARDS AND INVITATIONS?

Paperless Post has partnered exclusively with Paper Source to print a curated collection of paper cards and invitations for weddings and holidays, as well as stationery for those wanting to embrace the handwritten writing habit. 

OFF-THE-RACK, CUSTOMIZED OR DIY

Search by card shape, color, cost, and designer. Want Oscar de la Renta? Crane and Co? Marimekko? It’s all there.

Prefer to make your own masterpiece? With many cards, you can choose to upload your own photo and even modify the typefaces and font colors. You can replace the original message with something of your own. For example, the bear card up there? It was presented as a Father’s Day card, but I knew my friend Phil would like the bear, so I invented a holiday: Phil Day!

HOW PAYMENT WORKS

Paperless Post has developed its own currency. It’s not quite Bitcoin, but it is coin. Instead of buying each individual card, you purchase some dollar value to fill your account, and then each card type has an assigned coin value. As you create and send cards, the value in your account decreases, like a credit line at Oleson’s Mercantile on Little House on the Prairie.

Some items are free to send, while others require coins. Beyond premium card designs, there are premium add-ons, ranging from envelopes, liners, “stamps,” postmarks, logos, and backdrops, all of which require coins. They call this “the customization flow,” and as you add features, the cost of your card (per recipient) shows up in the top right corner of the screen. 

Paperless Post sells coins in packages, and the price per coin varies based on the size of the package, so there are discounts as you increase the package size. For instance, 20 coins for $10; see all the coin packages here. Coins are non-refundable, non-transferrable, and expire after of five years of account inactivity, so I advise loading up a small batch up coins, playing around, and giving yourself the option to add more later.

WHAT’S MISSING?

Paperless Post is gorgeous. It’s a visual delight filled with options. It’s reasonably priced. It’s innovative. However, I found that it wasn’t always intuitive. The site seems to assume it’s so easy that you don’t need instructions, which may be true for their younger, hipper target audience. (I’m not so young and was never hip.) The best way to cope is to let the site wash over you. Pick what you want from the menu at the top. Select colors and styles. If you, like me, want to dig deep and know all the options before you get started, head to the Help Center.

You also might want to download the mobile Paperless Post app, which I used on my iPad during the week my Mac’s hard drive was DOA. I found using the app to be fairly seamless, and it actually worked better for me than when I’d used my primary browser (Safari) which sometimes took me to error pages.

PARTY ON

This may seem like an atypical post for Paper Doll, but as I mentioned in my prior post on thank you notes, I’m a big believer in gratitude (and conviviality) for raising the spirits of all concerned, and using a service like Paperless Post lets you quickly commiserate with a co-worker who is out with the flu, invite friends to an impromptu pizza party, or thank someone for being your hero, no matter the weather or your personal card inventory. What could be more organized than having a resource at your fingertips that doesn’t even require maintaining your own inventory?

*DISCLAIMER: In return for writing an honest review of my experience, Paperless Post loaded my account with a coin package to use for testing the selection, design, purchase, and sending and receiving experiences. The opinions are my own (and who else would claim them, or insert Jane Austen into them?), and Paperless Post received no guarantee of review content.

I still write thank you notes.

There, I said it. Apparently, this makes me old-fashioned. But maybe you’re old-fashioned, too? Maybe you love showing the people who are kind to you that you appreciate their efforts, their generosity, or their innate value as human beings. And hey, Mr. Rogers wrote thank you notes (remember, he wrote one to Mr. McFeely?), and Mr. Rogers the coolest thing right now.

I fully admit that I haven’t hand-written a regular letter in at least ten years, and probably have written no more than a handful in the past twenty years. But a thank you note? Well, Paper Mommy taught me well.

Some people remember childhoods being forced to sit, glumly, prevented from playing with new presents until a thank you note was sent to Aunt Gertrude for the itchy sweater. Some of us (ahem, even in the second half our centuries on earth) are prodded with, “And of course you wrote a thank you note, right?” (Yes, Paper Mommy.) But the concept of a thank you note should be imbued with the delight of appreciation, not the weight of obligation.

I’m not sure I even appreciated the value of a thank you note until I was in my 30s and realized I’d slowly stopped receiving them. But thank you notes are great. Think of all the emotional heft given to the importance of gratitude journals:

The Benefits of a Gratitude Journal and How to Maintain One

Gratitude Journal: 67 Templates, Ideas, and Apps for Your Diary

Turn Pain to Joy: 11 Tips for a Powerful Gratitude Journal

The Ultimate Guide to Keeping a Gratitude Journal

120 Gratitude Journal Prompts to Create More Thankfulness in Your Life

If gratitude is good for us, if it helps us see things in a more positive light, imagine how much it could do for the objects of our gratitude, the people who give us reasons to be grateful!

Not to worry; this post isn’t a guilt trip for those who don’t write them. It’s a guidepost for how to quickly show your gratitude and get on with your life even when you rarely write something without a keyboard or phone in hand. 

ORGANIZE YOUR THANK YOU NOTE

You already know how to write “Dear Ms. So-and-So” or “Hi, BFF!” And I’m sure you have a sense of when it’s appropriate to sign with “Best regards, Chris” vs. “In gratitude, Jane” vs. “xoxoxox, Pookie.” (And yes, your BFF will probably be delighted to get an actual thank you note from her Pookie.)

• Start with gratitude. “Thank you.” Whether someone writes, “Thank you for the book” or “I am so appreciative of the time you took to explain the new credentialing rules,” recipients know they are being valued. Warm, meet fuzzy.
• Mention details. If you like the gift, you can say, “This is the perfect deelybopper and I’m so excited to have it.” If you don’t like it, say, “I’ve never seen anything with such intricate detailing.”
• Allude to the future. Anything from “The book is on the top of my to-read pile for my vacation” to “I will keep the advice you gave me at dinner in my mind as I choose my future school/career/mate/car.” (It doesn’t say you’ll follow the advice, and only you have to know that the truth is you’ll be remembering that advice so you can take the opposite path.)
• End with gratitude. Some things bear repeating.

For an informal thank you note, that’s all that’s needed. (For a more formal letter, you will add a more formal salutation and signature, and flesh out each of those points into a brief paragraph, but it’s all the same theory.)

ORGANIZE YOUR THANK YOU NOTE ACCESSORIES

In order to send a thank you note, you need three more things:

• The recipient’s address

For some of us, managing writing the thank you note is easy, but finding where to send it may keep you from writing post-Christmas thank you notes until July. Please don’t depend on having saved the envelope from a birthday card to find a return address months later.

Address books are great if you’re under 20; beyond that, you likely have hometown friends, college friends, colleagues from prior workplaces, current networking contacts, and so on. You likely know too many people who move far too often to keep a paper address book that covers all contingencies.

I have a confession.

I never know my best friend’s address. She and I haven’t lived in the same city for 30 years, and she moves much more often than I do. We talk on the phone a few times a week, text on most days, but since her children have grown and photos are digital, Amazon acts as our go-between for most tangible things. A few months ago, a thank you note I sent her was returned by the post office. She’d moved in August, and I sent the note to her old address. Because she’s my best friend, we laughed about it without cringing, but if your note to your spouse’s boss, thanking her for a lovely meal, got returned and you had to start all over again, you’d be groaning.

Pick ONE place where addresses will live. For me, even though I’m a paper doll, that’s my Apple Contacts app. Whether I’m on my Mac, iPhone, or iPad, everyone’s contact information is accessible. (I use Microsoft Outlook, which means I have an extra hoop through which to jump if I want to remember to add email addresses to physical addresses and phone numbers, but Contacts still works for me.)

Whether you keep a Google spreadsheet or an Evernote template or a document in Dropbox or use your iOS or Android system for keeping everything synced, create a system for maintaining people’s addresses. Update it every time someone moves, or maybe have Siri or Alexa remind you to tweet or post a Facebook message on the 17th of whatever month you choose, each year, to say, “Hey, if you’ve moved in the last year, text me your address so I absolutely have it!” Better safe than sorry.

• Stationery

Most people fall into one of two camps: there’s either nothing in their house nicer than the back of a receipt and an unused electric company payment envelope or there are piles and boxes and bags of greeting cards tucked all over the house. (We professional organizers truly have seen it all!) To make sure you have WHAT you need WHEN you need it, check out this classic Paper Doll post: 

Paper Manners Matter: Cut Card Clutter & Store Social Stationery

(And shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve started purchasing some very pretty card packs from the dollar store near my house. Eight cards for a dollar mean that unless you are really, really popular, you can inexpensively go the better part of the year without having to yield to the temptations of a card shop.)

• Postage

My post office is within walking distance of my house, but if getting to a post office is inconvenient for you, you can purchase stamps online. (Perhaps not surprisingly, even from Amazon.) Be forewarned, the post office arranges stamps by their names for the individual themes, and they aren’t always obvious. I was looking for my recent favorites, stamps with drawings of various types of Mexican food, but was having no luck searching “Mexican food,” “food,” etc. I recently went to dinner with my Nashville colleague, Liz Jenkins, CPO® (owner of A Fresh Space) and her husband, and thought it would be fun to put an empanada or some flan on the envelope. (Edited: Found them! Look for Delicioso! Update: As of December 2019, this stamp is only available as a framed print.)

In fact, in researching this post, I found that the US Postal Service has a stamp honoring Mr. Rogers, and a sheet of 20 will now be finding its way to Paper Doll HQ.

All this said, thank you notes (or cards, or letters, or invitations) do not have to be sent through the mail. Sometimes, time is of the essence. Sometimes the weather outside is frightful, and the idea of going out to buy cards or invitations or stationery and then mailing what you’ve written is even more frightful. Sometimes you lack confidence in your handwriting.

That’s OK. Paper Doll has you covered. In our next post, we’re going to talk about Paperless Post, one of the snazzy ways to send your thoughts so they get there quickly without looking like every other newsletter, bank statement, and email in the inbox. 

Until then, I thank you for being a Paper Doll reader, and truly appreciate the time you take reading my posts, whether you find them via Facebook, Twitter, your RSS reader, or from searching the web for a keyword that has nothing to do with what I’ve written about when I’ve made weird offhanded comments. (Admit it. You Googled deelybopper.) Until next time, Paper Doll is grateful for your readership, whether you’ve been around the whole eleven years or if this is your very first post.