Best Results Organizing

My parents once told me about a long lost relative who, when his bank statement got too terribly out of balance, withdrew all but a small amount (estimated to cover all outstanding checks), opened a new checking account at a different bank across town and abandoned the old one.  New bank account, new check register, new sense of freedom.

That old story has new wings.  For avid web surfers, it seemed to have started with a man named Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist.  In early 2007, Wilson declared bankruptcy on his blog—email bankruptcy.  He wrote, simply:

Wow.  While Wilson’s pithy post got linked and tracked and repeated all over the web, he wasn’t the first.  It turns out the real father of this movement might have been Stanford professor, copyright attorney and Wired columnist Lawrence Lessig, who, in 2004 sent an email to everyone in his address book, apologizing for a “lack of cyber decency” (which, I suppose, we could 21st century moral bankruptcy), and saying that if anyone was awaiting a response to an as-yet-unanswered email from him, they should reply directly to this particular email, implying all emails that had come before were to be ignored. 

Lessig apparently saw a declaration of email bankruptcy as the only option to allow him to repay any of his email debts–attacking the most urgent or important would be better than the hopeless and time-consuming attempt to handle them all.  With this method, he’d give “creditors” with the most valid claims on his time a chance to recoup their long-awaited loses, and he’d start clean. 

Certainly, this method has some appeal.  Lessig and Wilson absolutely aren’t the only ones in email bankruptcy court; they’re not even the only high-profile ones.  Even musician Moby (known for his high-tech & digitally-designed creations) is reported to have done it.

Although often credited to Lessig, the term email bankruptcy seems to have been coined a full decade ago by MIT Professor Sherry Turkle, and she’s been speaking on the subject for a decade, and as recently as national conferences in 2008.  Apparently, the fantasy of freeing oneself from the burden of massive and multiple screens’ worth of email is a common, appealing and compelling one.

As a professional organizer, I’ve seen clients facing this dilemma, with anywhere from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of emails in their in-boxes, haunting and taunting them.  Sure, there are great advantages, not the least of which is that unlike financial bankruptcy, you don’t have to wait 7 years to rebuild your online reputation.  However, I can’t say I’ve ever encouraged a declaration of email bankruptcy, which seems to involve three steps:  alerting everyone to your situation, apologizing, and deleting everything emailed prior to this moment.  

I’ve you’re thinking of email bankruptcy, Paper Doll encourages you to consider some compromise measures.  Peruse the following, which can be taken in baby steps:

1. Sort emails by date.  (Just click the top of the date column–it will reorder your emails, just like magic, and is an entirely reversible action.)
2. Create an email folder called “Archive”.
3. Drag old mail (everything from prior to last two weeks) to the Archive folder.
4. Take a deep breath.
5. Now, just handle whatever is “current” (perhaps the last 10 days or two weeks’ worth) in your in box.  Be ruthless, though.  If you haven’t read a newsletter or “joke” email by now, chances are you’ll live fine without it.
6. Pat yourself on the back.
7. Go to the Archived Folder.  Create a sub-folder called “Archive 2007 & Prior” or “Before 2008” or something like that.
8. Move everything from the Archive folder that’s dated prior to 01/01/2008 to the sub-folder.  In other words, the last year’s worth of stuff is archived, but stuff older than a year is SUPER-ARCHIVED.  (If you’ve been using your email inbox as an endless “to do” inbox for years, you may have up to 10 years worth of emails in your box.  Chances are good that if you missed anything prior to about 6 months ago, someone has already called to bug you about it.)

At this point, you could just stop and walk away, content that you’ve caught up on what’s truly essential.  You could also delete the whole sub-folder, because how likely are you to really need something sent to you between when you got your first AOL account in 1994 and the start of last year?  But just having all your 2008 set aside can make it seem more manageable, because if someone does contact you about an email sent a few months back, using your search function to find one email out of a year’s worth will be easier than location one in a decade’s.

However, if now that your email is reasonably mail sorted, you could just pull your December 2008 mail into a sub-folder and work on it (after first sorting by sender or date), then ruthlessly deleting newsletters (taking a moment to unsubscribe), hoax emails (check Snopes to find those warnings are almost always hoaxes), bad jokes and junk.

But I’m Paper Doll, so why am I talking about email?  Because this urge to run away, to abandon your paper debts is just as strong as that to free yourself of email.  Look around–do you have months, even years, of magazines, catalogs, old charitable requests, junk mail and loose papers surrounding you?  Wouldn’t it feel good to be free?  (Wouldn’t the foundation of your house be less likely to creak under the weight of it all?)  To that end, consider:

Catalog Bankruptcy–It’s January.  Last year’s (or last decade’s) prices don’t magically stay valid just because you’ve saved the catalogs. 

• Get a recycling bin and dump every catalog into it. 
• If you REALLY think you’ll order from any of these catalogs, take a minute to bookmark the URL so you can surf anytime you like.
• If you’ve spotted a turned-down page bearing a product you simply must have, tear out just that page–catalogs print their names/URLS/phone numbers on at least one side of every page.  Surf the site, bookmark the product page in a bookmark folder called “pending purchases” and recycle the paper.
• Call the 800 numbers and take your name off their mailing lists.

Magazine/Newspaper Bankruptcy–Do you hand-write a transcript of every episode of Oprah?  (No!!!) Then you don’t need to save every issue of O Magazine! If nobody is paying you to be an archivist, stop taking that on as a responsibility.

• Read what I had to say about magazine clutter last year, here and here.
• Go back and read it again.  This time, take it to heart.  Owning a magazine does mean you have a slightly greater potential to gain the knowledge within, but it’s only potential unless you actual read the articles, retain the information and release the magazine back into the wild.  Set them free!
• Start by making some rules to make the pain of letting go a little easier.  Perhaps you can save just the Holiday Issue of each magazine and let go of other months?
• Recognize that old news is history; if you haven’t read Time or your local paper from last April or even last week, trust me, your life will be none the poorer.  
• Affirm that there’s not that much new under the sun; if you throw out an issue emblazoned “A Flatter Belly in 30 Days”, be assured “A Tighter Tummy in 4 Weeks” will probably appear in your mailbox next week, anyway. 
• Trust Paper Doll (and failing that, Antiques Roadshow) that your 6-year-old National Geographics and daily papers will not become collectors’ items.
• Stop renewing subscriptions to magazines you don’t read in full by the time the next issue arrives. Really. (If you miss them that much, go read them at the library where the magazine clutter gets managed by the staff.)
• Donate the magazines and enjoy your free space.

Junk Mail Bankruptcy

• Do a reality check.  Last week, there was a vigorous discussion on Twitter regarding how so very many of us spent our childhoods coveting Samantha’s or Tabitha’s magical twitches (from Bewitched).  But we accept it’s not going to happen.  Now it’s time to face another truth.  You are very unlikely to win a magazine clearinghouse’s million dollar sweepstakes.  Your time is too valuable to play affix-the-sticker-on-the-contest-form, and we’ve already determined you don’t need new magazine subscriptions.
• Donate or don’t, but make a decision.  Too many people hold onto charitable donation requests for week, months or even years.  There’s no more or less inherent value in replying to any given request (except, quite possibly, letting the non-profit’s marketing firm make suppositions regarding which design was more popular).
• Shred convenience checks and any other “junk” mail that bears any personal information.  It’s junk if you don’t want it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not appealing to dumpster-diving identity thieves.

There are dozens of ways you can free yourself by declaring a positive kind of bankruptcy.  Starting today, think about what else you can jettison:  tasks and obligations that don’t fit your goals so you can spend more time with your loved ones? Email newsletters you only subscribed to so you could read the bonus ebook?  DVD and game subscriptions for discs you never have time to watch or play? 

Set yourself free!  Declare bankruptcy.

My dear reader, when you got back to work or school or your regular routine after the holidays, was something not quite right?  Have you found that after multiple days wondering “Wait, what day is today?”, you feel like you’ve lost a few days or even a week?

What does it mean to lose time?  I’m not talking about a Ray Milland-style Lost Weekend  complete with raucous over-imbibing, but situations where, through no naughty behavior on your part, important days are completely lost. 

Case in point:  Last week, the brilliant Stephen Fry (as in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves & Wooster, acting partner of Hugh Laurie (House), and director of Bright Young Things) posted the following to Twitter, the addictive social networking/microblogging service:

Wouldn’t losing your birthday annoy you?  And what about all those kids born on Leap Day, February 29th?  It must seem entirely unfair to them to lose their birthdays three out of four years.

Around-the-globe flights and Leap Days aren’t the only ways we lose time.  In case you were snoozing (and missed about 52 minutes of time) during high school Social Studies, you may not know that we all lost about a dozen days.  Well, not “we” as in us, you (and you, and you) and I, because we weren’t born yet, but historically speaking, depending on where our ancestors lived, we have lost anywhere from ten to fourteen days!

Didn’t know that?  Let Professor Paper Doll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

Everybody used to use the old Julian calendar.  (OK, not everybody.  Not the Chinese, which is why their new year is later this month, nor those following the Hebrew calendar, which starts the year at Rosh Hashanah, in early Fall.  But a whole hunk of Europe following the days of the Roman Empire…back when the European calendars were getting the most use and attention.)  The Julian calendar was a lunar calendar, with dates calculated according to the phases of the moon, dating back to the start of what is known as Anno Domini or the Common Era. 

HEY!  WAKE UP!  (This is what happened to you in Social Studies, isn’t it?)  Trust me, this’ll be quick.

Suffice it to say that back in olden days, the Catholic Church used a lunar calendar to properly calculate Easter, but after some number of centuries, everything got out of whack and the vernal equinox kept getting moved around, so that Easter showed up anywhere from March 22 to April 25!  (Right–you’re thinking that meant that half the time, the marshmallow Peeps were stale by then!)

They kept making tweaks, but by the 16th century, the lunar calendar and the real Moon (yeah, the one with the giant leap for mankind!) were four days out of phase. If everyone kept going on like that, it would soon be snowing on Independence Day!

So, the Catholic Church decided to correct the calendar.  It took a while for them to get the whole thing moving, so if you want to read about everything they tried, feel free, but the biggie is that they solved the problem of “drift” over the 13 centuries since the Council of Nicaea by just ZAP!!! deleting ten days from the calendar.

So, if you went to bed on Thursday, October 4, 1582 on the old (Julian) calendar, when you woke up the next morning, it was Friday, October 15, 1582 on the new (Gregorian) calendar, and you’d lost 10 days!  (Good luck if you forgot to TIVO Roman Idol–Results Show!)  As if that weren’t freaky enough, when this whole thing began, Spain, Italy, Portugal and (what was, in the 16th and 17th centuries) the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth all joined in, but non-Catholic countries and much of the rest of the world said “Uh, no thanks!”, kind of like how parts of Indiana rejected Daylight Savings Time prior to 2006.

It took hundreds of years for all of the other countries to eventually jump on the bandwagon–as time went on, adopters had to skip eleven, then twelve, and eventually fourteen days to catch up. Greece adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923, and China in 1929.  As a possession of Great Britain, the soon-to-be-known-as United States adopted it in 1752; however, Alaska still belonged to Russia and thus did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1867.  This is why you’ll often read books that refer to Shakespeare’s or Washington’s dates of birth under the “old” calendar with a sniff of derision.  In many cases, remote areas took so long to fall in line, that there’s no certainty as to matching up of dates.

Can you imagine if you lived near a national border or were trying to accomplish any sort of diplomacy?  You invite the King of Norway to dinner, but you’re so offended when he doesn’t show up, you decide to start a war.  Just as you’ve waved off your generals, King Ole shows up–almost two weeks late, and now he’s offended that you haven’t cooked or even put on the nice tablecloth and is ready to do battle! Oy, vey.

What is the point of all of this little history lesson?  Having multiple calendars that aren’t in sync with one another isn’t merely disorganized.  It’s disorienting and can cause upheaval in the lives of all of the little fiefdoms that surround you.
My first blog post of 2008 was about selecting and using your calendar.  All of the contents of that post are still valid, so please go back and check it out if you’re not certain how to pick the right calendar for you.  But there’s something else I should have said.  You may have heard the adage:

The man with one watch knows what time it is. 
The man with two watches is never sure.

It might be ideal, but the truth is that it’s not always feasible to have only one calendar.  If you’re a busy corporate parent with your business obligations filling up your own work calendar in the office and a group-wide Google calendar with your colleagues, and you’re also trying to make sure that your spouse’s commitments and the plans of your kids (the little and not-so little ones) don’t conflict, you know that one calendar isn’t going to do it.  If you’re a Paper Doll reader, you’re probably the defacto designee in charge of making sure all these potential conflicts get stopped in their tracks.  So, to avoid wars with Norway (and your family and co-workers), bear in mind the following tips:

1. Have a portable calendar or planner.  As I stated in last year’s blog, it’s your commitment to the system, rather than the format, that matters most.  However, you have to be able to verify your prior obligations before you can confer with the orthodontist, the PTA bake sale planning committee or the Vice President in charge of Norwegian distribution.  That means you have to have your calendar with you, whether it’s paper or digital.
2. Have an ALL-FAMILY calendar at home in a high-traffic area.  Make it clear that it’s everyone’s obligation to post the dates for their soccer games and band concerts, corporate conferences and slumber parties.
3. Schedule a block of SYNC TIME (that can’t be canceled, negotiated or skipped over due to national degree) each week for making sure that nothing has changed or moved.  Families are busier than ever; if yours is up in arms, scheduling time for diplomacy can earn you a little dtante.  

Getting and staying organized is all about creating homes (physical or temporal) for your stuff and tasks to live.  While Paper Doll can’t stop the loss of leap day birthdays or time zone wormholes (yet), I hope 2009 will find you and the Norways in your life to be compatible and always on the same (calendar) page.

Oh, I almost forgot:  Happy Get Organized Month!

I should be mingling, but I’ve ducked into the other room to catch the end of my favorite movie:

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Harry:  I love how you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out.  I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.  I love that you get a little crinkle right there when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts.  I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.  And I love that you’re the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.  And it’s not because I’m lonely.  And it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve.  I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Sally:  That is just like you, Harry.  You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry.  I really hate you.  I hate you.

“AULD LANG SYNE” continues in the background.  

Harry:  What does this song mean?  My whole life, I have never known what this song means. I mean, “Should old acquaintance be forgot”?  Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we happen to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them?

Sally:  Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that wee forgot them or something.  Anyway, it’s about old friends.

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This is a time to recall “auld acquaintance”, and as we approach a sparkling new year, to introduce Paper Doll readers to other great and inspiring blogs.  Harry crashed the party Sally attended, so let’s think of today’s post as a New Year’s Eve party I’m hosting, and I’m introducing you to some new organizing friends with whom you can mingle.

First, pass the hors d’oeuvres trays to a few of my fellow OnlineOrganizing.com Blog Central pals.  Janet Barclay writes Technology as an Organizing Tool.  Between the two of us, with paper and tech, I like to think we can help you get all your information organized.  Janet’s a virtual assistant who specializes in organizing the organizers (whew!) so you know she knows her stuff.  Suzanne Babb is a double-delight.  She has not only blogged here about getting over computer fears and Setting and Achieving Goals, her Let’s Talk Organizing blog and podcast really energize a lively but practical approach to solving organizing challenges at work and at home.

Like the decorations at this end-of-the-year party?  (Go along with me here, folks.  It’s a blog!) Most long-time readers know that my posts tend to favor function over form.  It’s not that aesthetics aren’t important; it’s just that I was the gal still making stick figures in 10th grade art class.  For a blog on creative organizing from the visual perspective, Aby Garvey‘s Creative Organizing blog is a superb place to start your new year.  It’s joyous to view, and you’ll learn something, too!

No party is complete without twin planets around whom partiers circulate and conversation flows. Meet the double-trouble of Krista Colvin and Brandie Kajino.  You may know these gals from their hilarious and informative radio program The O-Myth, where they break down that stick-in-the-mud reputation often applied to organizing and those of us who practice it.  They’ve interviewed everyone from Oprah’s pal, Peter Walsh, to Unclutterer‘s Erin Doland. 

What?  You don’t know Erin? (There’s some snippy socialite at every party (though not Paper Doll‘s) who wants you to feel small if you don’t know the person it’s de rigueur to know.  Well, Unclutterer is the blog that must be known!  Start reading now, and catch up by reading the Sunday “year-ago” posts.)   

But back to Krista and Brandie.  Did you know these gals blog, too?  Brandi’s blog, The Home Office Organizer, offers everything the solopreneur needs–organizing advice, money- and time-saving tips and a pixieish cheer that keeps you motivated.  Krista’s Organize In Style is all about keeping it together–the job, the house, the kids, the life–and is a cool introduction to her whole SheBang program.

There’s no band* at this New Year’s Eve shindig, but if you want a little entertainment with your organizing, make time to get to know John Trosko‘s Organizing LA Blog.  It’s fun, a little zany, and sometimes it feels like our industry’s own Entertainment Tonight. To wit, no matter where you reside, see what he has to say about the 2009 Los Angeles Organizing Awards. 

Oh, were you wondering if John’s the lone guy out there blogging about organizing?  Be assured, he’s not, and let’s wander over to the beverage area to introduce you to Scott Roewer of DeclutterYou.com.  (He’s the one who shares my love of diet Coke.) From saving money to saving space, high tech to low stress, Scott’s got you covered, and while I’d never call him cartoonish, he’s been known to get animated.  And we can’t forget Jim Deitzel, chief cook and blogger/bottle-washer of the fabulous Rubbermaid blog, who is so supportive of the organizing industry.

Look who just walked into the party, fashionably attired and trailed by paparazzi!!  It’s Monica Ricci of Your Life. Organized.  Ok, I’ll admit it–she’s the first professional organizer I ever met (all those years ago), and I’m still floored by how she wears success like a comfy sweater.  Monica may be a national spokeswoman, a sought-after national speaker, a published author, a favorite radio and TV guest and so much more, but reading her blog is like going to lunch with an old friend who is so ready to dish the latest dirt to make organizing even more fun.

And who arrived with Monica?  That’s none other than Lorie Marrero!  Her ClutterDiet blog is a charming surprise–like that workout class you sign up for because you want to shed that holiday poundage, but you discover silly friends with whom you’d work out even if you magically had Beyonc’s waistline (and moves)?  Who else but Lorie would tell you about bed spectacles so you can watch TV when you’re lying down?  Who else would retrofit her office to make a treadmill desk?

Every hostess needs friends who turn us on to the best bakeries and caterers.  (Seriously. Paper Doll does not cook!)  Well, for knowing what’s going on…everywhere…a tip of my blogger-hostess hat to Allison Carter, who’s not only my mirror image, creatively Right Brain Organizing when I’m step-by-stepping it on the left), but she’s keeping our whole industry up to date with her Organizer U blog.

At every great soire, someone’s circulating with a camera, making sure that the revelry is captured for posterity.  At this party, that’s Jeri Dansky of the eponymous Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering News, and she just leaves me awed. Proving that a picture is worth a thousand words, and obviously putting hours of research behind every themed picture-filled post, Jeri is the resource queen of professional organizing.  If there’s a tangible product for storing or organizing, or a service or site to make your life easier, Jeri is the first to find it and share it with readers.  Jeri’s blog rocks–don’t miss out. 

I hope you get to know these great bloggers in 2009, and I haven’t even told you about…  Oh, will you look at the time?  How organized would I be if I missed the main event of my own party?

5!!!…4!!!…3!!!…2!!!…1!!!

*Readers, please write in.  What would be the best band to play at a party of professional organizers and organizing bloggers?  What songs would make up the play list?

Dear Readers:

Faithful fans of Paper Doll know that as much as I love organizing paper, I try to recognize that sometimes you just have to open yourself to the whimsical notion that organizing for function isn’t always the only way to go.  For example, you may recall that right in the middle of our series on solving book clutter (here and here),  I talked about fabulous, if not functional ways to organize books.  Well, the holidays bring a vivid example:

Yes, the book “tree” is lovely (though bibliophiles are surely blanching at the structural damage being done to the spines and pages). But what’s truly adorable about this Christmas Book-Tree is the video of the two little children who brought it to fruition.  (Click to watch the video and then check out the blog.  It’s OK. I’ll wait.)  I’m not sure whether these tykes are Dutch blogger/designer Frank Visser’s own progeny, but their obvious delight in creation reminds us of the child in all of us and that sometimes, stepping away from organization and structure can open us to new possibilities.

There’s no paper, but we do have what appear to be paper clips, in the Hanukkah celebration on Terry Border’s amazing Bent Objects blog.  For the uninitiated, those dreidel-spinning gamblers are latkes, or delicious, golden potato pancakes. The coins are called gelt and don’t let them melt–they’re chocolate!

So, let the holidays of this remarkable year end with enchantment, not stress.  Get down on the floor and color (outside the lines) and make a Kwanzaa kinara with your kids out of cardboard and tissue paper.  

Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or some combination thereof, please take time to enjoy your families and friends.  Tuck away the reusable wrapping paper if you can, update your address book via Christmas card return-address labels if you are able, but give yourself a Get Out of Clutter Jail Free card.  Don’t stress about filing away the manuals for the new gadgets, tossing the holiday cards or getting to that backlog of catalogs and holiday-themed magazines and recipes.  There will be time enough for that, later on.  Organizing is about making your space, time and thoughts work well for you.  So declutter any errant thoughts that keep you from enjoying this time of year, and let the rosy glow of Rudolph’s nose soften your focus on your surroundings. Just enjoy.

It shouldn’t be surprising that as a professional organizer, I usually encourage people to give gifts of experiences.  In my holiday-themed ebook, Simplify the Season & Save Your Sanity, I nudge readers to acquire gifts that don’t need to be dry-cleaned, dusted, stored or maintained.  There are oodles of gift categories, things that keep on giving and are appreciated and remembered long after the excess wrapping paper has been recycled.  For example:

Education—What could do a better job of showing you’ve actually been listening to your loved one all along than pre-paying for lessons in whatever he or she has always wanted to learn, know or do? Studying cooking, music and self-defense are intellectual as well as physical pursuits that allow your recipient to share the knowledge and experience with others.  If you haven‘t been paying attention, create a gift certificate (in your price range) that promises to pay for real-world or online classes in whatever they pick:  a foreign language, ballroom dance, quilting, horseback riding, driver’s education, scrapbooking or whatever else delights. 

Entertainment—The options are boundless, from individual tickets to sporting events, concerts or comedy clubs to a full season at the symphony, or a lecture or theater series.  Check out local community theaters, universities, and even high school schedules for offbeat music and entertainment offerings.  This way, their memories will live on long after the holidays.

Practicality—Not everyone wants something shiny and new; sometimes, a gift can make everyday life easier and less expensive.  Drivers might love gift certificates for oil changes, car washes or detailing, or annual auto club memberships.  For college students or others on a fixed income, multiple months of internet, cable/satellite, movie services (like Netflix) or cellular service are practical, but also mean they can spend their money spontaneously on something fun.

Pampering—Bust their stress with gift certificates for haircuts and styling, spa facials, or a massage.  Got guys on your list?  Many day spas have special packages for athletes and sportsmen, and you just know those are gifts they’d be unlikely to purchase for themselves.  Have a pal struggling to quit smoking or lose weight? How about pre-paid sessions with a hypnotherapist or acupuncturist? For a more lavish gift, consider 3-month gym memberships, time with a fitness trainer or a night at a cozy bed & breakfast?

Tasty Treats—No clutter here (except on our bodies, in which case, reread the previous section on hiring a fitness trainer).  There are any number of food-of-the month clubs, and some amazing fruit, vegetable, meat, and dessert delivery.  Some of Paper Doll‘s favorites include Harry & David, Cushman’s, Vermont Shortbread Company and oh-my-gosh Zingerman’s.  Yum!

Sports Adventure—The thrill-lovers on your list might get giddy over gifts of hot-air ballooning or hang gliding.  Wouldn’t your huge NASCAR fan love a ride-along at the Richard Petty Driving Experience?  There are price points for every level of adventurer: pre-paid time in the batting cages might be just as exciting for some people as a week of baseball fantasy camp; a fulfilled promise to go camping with your kid might be a much bigger deal than a month at a fancy summer camp.
 
A Whole New Year—Secure a state (or multiple state) fishing license, a U.S. National Parks annual pass or year of college alumni or professional association dues.  Gifts of memberships at local attractions like zoos, art galleries, science museums and historical societies may even be reciprocated when your recipients travel nationwide.  Even if a company doesn’t have a formal full-year subscription, ask if they’ll create something for your budget.

Organization—All of the above gifts are intangibles or at least only briefly-tangibles, in the case of the foodstuffs.  But the ironic thing about organizing is that most gifts of organization require something tangible, taking up space.  (One exception?  A gift certificate to work with a professional organizer.  Check out the National Association of Professional Organizers or OnlineOrganizing.com‘s referral services to get you started.)

There are other great organizational gifts that are tangible, but if properly used, help eliminate clutter.  For example, when we talked about identity theft, we discussed the importance of having a shredder.  But if your loved one already has a shredder (or wouldn’t consider one to be an acceptable holiday present), how about adding a stocking stuffer like stainless steel shredding scissors?

Fireproof safes, tickler files and label makers are also great clutter-reducing gifts.  They are tangible, but these practical gift ideas help reduce paper clutter, protect financial identities and in the case of label makers, are just downright nifty to use.  I prefer tiny ones, but my colleague Brandie Kajino just put up a cool video review of the Dymo LabelWriter Twin Turbo, which is even able to print postage.

I hear you saying, “But what about organizing books, Paper Doll?”  With so many great titles out there (just look at all the paper organizing books OnlineOrganizing.com carries!), it would be hard to pick only a few (and impossible not to mention my own Tickle Yourself Organized).  Instead, Paper Doll will start adding book reviews to the blog in 2009 to cover all the decluttering books out there.  So instead, I’d just like to mention two organizing-related books that would make great and useful gifts this season:

First, I’d consider The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff by Julie Hall, a professional estate contents expert and certified property appraiser.  I have to admit, I’m always a little wary of organizing-related books written by other than professional organizers, but I can strongly recommend Hall’s practical style of dealing with downsizing elderly parents’ belongings. 

Hall focuses on the serious issues, like how to watch for the onset of mental and physical health-related obstacles, but she also has a humorous and no-nonsense approach.  For example, in her chapter “The Hearse Doesn’t Have a Trailer Hitch”, she notes that clients sometimes talk about items passed down from a distant relative in 1837.  Hall says “As an appraiser, this is the part where I have to say that they had junk in 1837, too.  Just because it is old, does not mean it is valuable.”  This is a wonderful book to share with your sandwich generation friends, the same ones you told about my September post on “nana technology”.

Bob Sullivan’s Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day-and What You Can Do About It is another winner in my book.  Organizing is all about doing things better–saving time, saving money, reducing stress and being more productive.  Well, we’ve all been paying hidden fees for just about everything:  credit card companies and banks, cell phone, internet and long distance services, groceries and gift cards, student loans and insurance!  You can be sure those hidden fees aren’t just wasting our money, but also our time and productivity, and that sure stresses Paper Doll!

Sullivan doesn’t merely scare or depress with the facts; he provides a toolkit of scripts and sample letters to help you get refunds, negotiate lower interest rates, remove fees, and stop a sales pitch in its tracks.  Every grown-up on your list, but especially graduating students and newly out-of-the-nest young adults, would be lucky to get this as a gift.

Finally, in case you’re wondering what Paper Doll would like for Hanukkah this year, my tastes haven’t changed much throughout 2008.  I probably don’t need the calorie clutter of my beloved Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but if anyone has a direct line to seemingly-streamlined George Clooney , I’d gladly accept (no matter how much secret clutter he may have).