Archive for ‘General’ Category

Posted on: January 1st, 2008 by Julie Bestry | No Comments


Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

~Soren Kierkegaard

I love calendars. In my geeky esteem, the start of the new year conjures Paper Doll memories about the wonderful potential that every new year brings. In my last two years of high school and first year of college, a friend’s Italian aunt shipped us each a medium-sized hard-bound calendar. Emblazoned on the cover was Diario Agenda, which I mistook as a brand, rather than the Italian for “calendar”.

Faux-leather bound, each page bore the name of the month and day of the week in English, French and Italian, as well as the numerical date. The blank, creamy pages could be used as an appointment calendar (agenda) or journal (diario) or doodle book, but to me it represented all the possibilities and dreams I had for the burgeoning future.

What does your calendar mean to you?

  • Do you carefully keep one calendar (or PDA program) to keep you from missing all the important dates in your life?
  • Are you juggling one calendar at work, another for personal activities and a life-sized calendar for your family in the kitchen…one where nobody seems to remember to write “Cupcakes for PTA bake sale”?
  • Are you still using a 2006 (or earlier) calendar adorned with Post-Its to try to keep up with all the demands of modern life?
  • Do you have salon and healthcare appointment cards taped to your fridge, blocked by birthday party invitations and months-old reminders?
  • Is there any room in your calendar system for your dreams?

Clients sometimes ask whether they are hopelessly out of date using a paper calendar instead of Blackberry or PDA synced to their PCs. The truth is, the type of calendar system you use is far less important than your level of commitment to whatever system you pick.

If you tend to be a linear thinking, enjoy reading gadget manuals, and will remember to write every appointment, click every tick-box, sync and back-up every single day and keep your gadget charged and close at hand, the technical route may work for you!

If you’d rather keep a paper calendar that lets you color-code your appointments and obligations by life category or family member, or the thought of using one more beeping device gives you a headache, paper calendaring may be your best bet.

Commitment to the process, rather than the format of your system is key! (Paper Doll is already committed to her Franklin Covey classic-size daily calendar pages with the New Yorker Cartoon theme. If I weren’t so loyal, I’d be using another well-respected paper system.) With that in mind, if you don’t already have your 2008 calendar, consider the following issues:

  • Pick a calendar that lets you see a month at a glance as well ample space for writing notes for each individual day.
  • Select a planner that has enough space for you to write. If you have sprawling and not-so-neat penmanship (like Paper Doll), a pocket-sized planner may cramp your style, literally and figuratively.
  • Use only one planner for your business and personal appointments. If you keep one calendar for your doctors’ appointments and schedule for your kids, and another for work, you’ll never know if your child’s recital conflicts with a major client presentation, or if you’ve scheduled yourself to attend a work conference the week your children have school vacations.
  • Schedule everything you can up front. Once you buy your calendar for 2008, go through your 2007 pages day by day to mark all the recurring events (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) Then, record all the 2008 medical and dental appointments you’ve already scheduled. Haven’t scheduled your well-care or well-child visits for 2008? Call this week to make appointments and put them in place!

Finally, if you’re the type who forgets to check your calendar, use a few technology and accountability tips:

  1. Set an alarm on your cell phone to ring at the end of every day, around 6 p.m., to remind you to check your calendar for the next day and/or the coming week.
  2. Ask loved ones to prompt you:  “What’s on your schedule for tomorrow?” at dinnertime.
  3. When you leave any location you visit intermittently (doctor, dentist, massage therapist, salon, etc.) schedule your next appointment if you have your calendar with you.  If you aren’t traveling with your calendar (tsk, tsk), ask them to call you the next day (at a time you know you will be available) to set up your next appointment.

Happy New Year! Paper Doll hopes your 2008 will be happy, healthy and clutter-free!


And finally:

What do you get when you cross a kangaroo with a calendar?

A leap year!

Posted on: December 25th, 2007 by Julie Bestry | No Comments


A reader inquires:

I was wondering what should I do with my Christmas Cards. I really appreciate people remembering me and sending me cards but what do I do with them now?

The U. S. Postal Service delivered an estimated 20 billion cards, letters and packages this December — do you feel like most of them are on your kitchen table? Depending on how sentimental you are about cards vs. how ruthlessly you want to eliminate clutter, you have a few options:

1) Throw the cards out!!!
A holiday card is like a phone message or an actual conversation you might have by telephone or in person. If someone wishes you “Merry Christmas” or “Good Kwanzaa” or “Happy Hanukkah”, do you transcribe the conversation and keep the notes indefinitely?  Of course not — toss!

2) Toss most cards, but retain a few for sentimental and practical reasons.

Sentimentality
Pour a cup of cocoa and reread your cards with an analytical eye. Was the message written by an employee of Hallmark? Did the sender write only a few words or merely scribble his name? Check the sender’s current address against your address book and then toss it out.

Next, read through those annual newsletters. If you are close with the sender, nothing should actually be “news” to you; if it’s genuinely newsworthy, you’ll remember it and won’t need the written record. If the sender is not really close, knowing little Jimmy struggled with potty training won’t factor into your continued enjoyment of life. Toss!

Now, with only the most memorable and meaningful cards, think deeply about why you want to keep them:

  • Do you feel guilty discarding the cards? Recognize that the vast majority of people do, indeed, just toss out all cards after January 1st. You have Paper Doll‘s permission.
  • Do you fear you might be tested the next time you speak with the sender? As long as you don’t forget your friend’s children’s name (make a note in your address book), you’ll be fine. (With grandchildren, you’ll get away with saying “…and how’s the baby?” without specifying anything further.)
  • Does the message make you laugh or fill you with joy, love and peace? That’s a keeper!

With sentimental correspondence, I suggest keeping love letters, special letters from parents or grandparents, and cards related to truly momentous events, like 21st birthdays. As Christmas comes every year, even most hand-written messages would need to be pretty impressive to be worth keeping beyond January. 🙂


Practicality — A pile of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas or New Year’s cards can yield practical information: WHO sent you a card and FROM WHERE did they send it?

Compare the return address with the address you have for the person in your address book or PDA. If the address is the same and the message is not deeply personal or meaningful, the card can be tossed immediately. If the address is different, update your data and then toss the non-essential cards and envelopes. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you “appreciate people remembering you”, show your appreciation in one of three ways:

  • Call long-distance senders to let them know you appreciated being remembered. Saving a card does nothing for the sender and clutters up your space. A 20-minute phone call costs less than a First Class stamp. Schedule one name on each Saturday of the new year to give an unexpected, cheery “hello” to those you really care about.
  • Send a chatty email. Comment on something in the sender’s annual holiday newsletter — show you care without keeping the clutter.
  • Add the senders’ names to your own holiday card list, if you intend to send holiday cards next year.

Just because someone sends you a card, it doesn’t mean you have to send one to them. The dealership that sold me my car in 1998 regularly sends me a birthday card. A dear friend gave up sending cards after her third child. I’m neither flattered by receiving a card nor offended if one does not arrive.  Adopt that same “nice but not necessary” attitude towards cards.

3) Note changed addresses, toss the envelopes and then sort cards into categories like:

  • Inspirational printed quotations–copy moving quotations into a Word file or individual signature files in your email software. Save the quote, not the clutter!
  • Personal messages — Depending on your personal style, either put the remaining cards in a “Christmas Card” album, as one might do for family photos, or store them standing vertically, in a photo box organizer (the kind that look like shoe boxes, also as one might do for photos) or flat in a keepsake box.
  • Cover art that you love — Truly artistic people with (I fear) too much time on their hands like to decoupage or gloss the cards and make ornaments out of them, storing the finished items with other ornaments. Recycle artistically!
  • Nothing special–If neither the message nor the artwork/design is particularly meaningful, toss it away.

What does Paper Doll do? Mostly, I toss. I have one small keepsake box in which I keep special cards and letters, tied by a ribbon, so I can reread them on special occasions.  

Just as you can appreciate someone calling you without keeping a tangible record of them having done so, you can appreciate holiday cards without keeping them. Feel the freedom, release the card clutter! Happy Holidays!

Posted on: December 18th, 2007 by Julie Bestry | No Comments

 

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.
~ Mark Twain

 


Over the past weeks, our discussion of the five essential filing categories for reference papers has dealt with the practical elements of life. Organized financial and legal records allow us to protect ourselves and our possessions. Well-maintained medical records keep us and our loved ones healthy. And the household papers we discussed last week allow us to live with ease and convenience. But what of our personal papers?

So often, we live our lives and maintain our personal papers as if we were hoarding our personal history. Are we so sure that someday, in some way, we will be famous and revered, so much so that we need to build up our memoirs? Or, rather than living under the grand illusion that some day our personal histories will be sought by one and all, are we afraid that our identities, or our memory of who we are (or once were) will fade away if we don’t maintain the proof?

As with the medical paperwork we discussed a few weeks ago, we break down the sub-categories of PERSONAL paperwork by individual.

A. PERSONAL HISTORY
This is where you keep the papers that represent who you are (or have been). There are the building blocks of the archive of YOU; the less likely you will be to have a Presidential Library or have your children write a nasty tell-all, the less you need to save. You may have files related to your:

1. Educational history – These would include files for:

  • School transcripts
  • SAT/GRE/LSAT/MCAT/GMAT scores
  • Letters of recommendations from professors or academic mentors
  • Select papers bearing particularly heartwarming comments or grades (Toss freshman biology labs, assorted blue books and the test graded by that snarky teaching assistant. You have the diploma; you don’t need every paper and test to prove you were there!)
  • Continuing education credits or certificates
  • Your senior or graduate thesis (However, if it is bound as a published thesis, shelve it with your books or in a framed, decorative case).

2. Professional history
The longer you have been in your profession, and particularly the longer you have been out of a former profession, the fewer old papers you’ll need for reference. Of course, if these materials, like your educational records, bolster your self-esteem and you have adequate space, keeping a representative portion is fine. Current and archival files for your professional history may include:

  • Licenses and/or certification – file by issuing organization, or, if applicable, by state.
  • Resumes – keep one manila folder with copies of your current resume; if you keep old resumes, pick one copy of each, reflecting major revisions.
  • Professional letters of recommendation
  • Citations regarding your professional success and/or letters of gratitude from superiors, vendors or clients
  • Newspaper clippings (but not the entire newspaper) noting your professional successes and/or acumen

3. Military History
If your career, or part of it, has been in the military, you will want to keep a copy of the records. Your basic military service records go in the VIP section of your legal paperwork; those are the official records that allow you to collect your benefits and otherwise prove your service record.

However, your military history also includes the more personal records of your time serving your nation, so this is where you would maintain:

  • Awards/Decorations/Citations and/or written references to them
  • Letters of commendation
  • Correspondence regarding replacement of medals
  • Enlistment records
  • Copies of military separation papers (the originals should be in your safe deposit box or fireproof safe)
  • Training and qualification records

4. Public Service History—If you played a role in local or national politics or other kinds of public service (The Peace Corps, Teach For America, Americorps, etc.) create a hanging folder, or even a series of them, with the major records from each experience.

B. PERSONAL INTERESTS
Generally, anything that brings you joy, delights your intellect or warms your heart or soul would likely fall under personal interest. This includes activities and areas of intellectual/emotional interest, which can be further broken down into the appropriate categories, like:

  • Hobbies—depending on how many hobbies you actively pursue and how zealously you pursue them, you might have one manila folder or many hanging folders. Keep only the reference material that provides information you don’t already know or can’t access quickly via the web.
  • Volunteer activities—Are you a Big Brother or Big Sister? Do you hammer for Habitat for Humanity? Here’s where you might keep copies of registration materials and instructions.
  • Memberships—Keep track of ID numbers and renewal information for every professional and personal group to which you belong. Are you a member of the National Parks Service? Were you (or are you) a Girl Scout or Camp Fire kid? Are you in Rotary or a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union? (I won’t ask if you’re in any secret societies; if you’re a Freemason, you’re not likely to tell Paper Doll.)
  • Issues/Interests – If you have pet topics (Social Security reform, Lost, local zoning laws, wrinkle removal, George Clooney), you may clip articles for later review. While it’s better to read, purge and move on, corralling clippings in one place is better than letting clutter flutter.
  • Travel—Do you find stories of distance lands (or even distant restaurants) enticing? Here’s where to keep those clippings–in a travel subcategory. If, however, you start planning for a particular trip, say to Ireland or the Grand Canyon, create a folder especially for that dream journey to help you iron out the details. If you plan many years in advance, be sure to prune out the outdated articles annually, like the ones that refer to “the 48 states”.
  • Books/videos/music/gifts you want to experience or acquire – if you like to clip reviews of potential purchases, create a folder to hold them all. If you’re a serious shopper, a hanging folder with categorized, labeled manila folders may help you keep it all straight. However, creating a wish list at Amazon.com or your favorite e-store would allow you to note that you wanted to acquire things while keeping all this information digitally.

C. SUCCESS FILES
Keep track of personal successes. These can be letters of gratitude for a job well done, benchmark chips (30 days, 1 year, etc.) from 12-step programs, or anything that reminds you of achievements or challenges surmounted. We all have rough periods, and a success file can help us through them.

D. PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE
If you’re lucky enough to have a pen pal in the age of cyberspace, here’s the perfect place to maintain meaningful letters. But don’t be lulled into thinking having filing space means you can save all your postcards, birthday cards, dental appointment notices, etc. Save correspondence that contains original sentiment; part with emotions penned by Hallmark containing only a signature.

E. INSPIRATIONAL FILES
Do you clip O Magazine‘s monthly spread called Breathing Space. What about adorable babies (or pets), black & white glamour shots, quirky headlines, or motivational anecdotes from newspapers and magazines. Instead of keeping such items stuck on your refrigerator (only to find, within months, they are dusty or jam-covered), create a folder for the items that stir you to think, write, create, or dream.


Each member of your family can have his or her own section of personal files. However, if you have specific FAMILY activities that you do together (like attending your house of worship or planning an annual family reunion), create a family section, as if the collective family were an individual person.


Over the last six weeks, we’ve discussed the essentials for building a personal reference file system, reviewed how all the reference papers in our lives can fit neatly into one of five categories, and discussed how to turn fluttering paper clutter into a streamlined and usable system.

Reference papers are only one element of the papers that come into our lives.  Next year, we’ll be talking about all the other papers that make up our lives, including action items like permission slips, bills, and coupons, helpful papers like Mapquest directions and shopping lists, and memoirs and memories, like photographs and personal journals. And we’ll talk about what to do with the sneaky papers masquerading as “important” that fill up our purses and briefcases, message pads and Post-It notes.  We’ll have a new slate in ’08!

 

Posted on: December 11th, 2007 by Julie Bestry | No Comments


Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

~John Howard Payne

Do you speak Japanese? Then why are there foreign-language instruction manuals for your toaster in the kitchen junk drawer? (And do you really need help making toast?)

If you were robbed, could you prove your losses to the insurance company?

Continuing our discussion of the family/personal filing and how everything can fit into one of five reference categories, we’ve reached:

Financial
Legal
Medical
Household
Personal

HOUSEHOLD paperwork is the most straightforward cateogry – it encompasses anything that keeps your home (be it ever so humble) and all the stuff in it running smoothly. Create hanging folders for sub-categories like:

A. Household Services – Maintain individual folders for each ongoing service for which you’ve arranged regularly scheduled household care, like Terminex or lawncare. (Monthly or periodic invoices belong in the financial section, but the “terms of service” paperwork belong here.)

B. Home Maintenance Records:

  • Escape routes / plans in case of fire
  • Schedule of seasonal household maintenance
  • List/description of non-standard replacement light bulbs for ceiling, garage and outdoor lights.
  • Battery record – it helps to keep a running list of what size batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9-volt, etc.) each item in your home requires. When you buy something that requires batteries to operate it (or its remote control), jot down the battery size here.

C. Household Inventory
Include a written, photographic and/or audiovisual household maintenance of all of your rooms, including furniture, electronics, silver, crystal, jewelry and anything for which you might make an insurance claim if stolen or damaged. Note the item’s name (and brand name), date of purchase, where it was purchased and the price you paid.

Create written inventory files in the computer and just print a new one to replace the old when once you’ve acquired more goodies. Maintain a copy on disc for the written and audiovisual inventories in your safe deposit box and/or fire-proof safe, and keep an updatable copy in your home files. Also, keep inventories for:

  • Second homes
  • Time-share properties
  • Off-site storage facilities
  • College dormitory summer storage

D. Auto Maintenance Records
Even if your mechanic keeps computerized records of all maintenance to your car, keeping accurate records will help you financially. If your automaker issues a recall or technical service bulletin, you may be able to recoup money you’ve paid for repairs. If you sell your car privately, prospective owners may be more inclined to purchase a car with a carefully maintained service history. Keep a file folder for:

  • Service records — Each time you get an oil change or have a car repair, the mechanic should provide you with printout of what was done, on what date, at what mileage.
  • Purchases – Include records of all purchases for your car, such as tires, batteries and windshield wipers.
  • Mileage records – While not essential, if you do maintain mileage records for purposes other than tax deductions, keep these here.

Heavy-duty drivers may find it more convenient to keep auto maintenance records in reverse chronological order, in a flexible three-ring binder under the driver’s seat, rather than in the file systems.

Ease of access is an advantage, but Paper Doll worries about what happens to these records in case of a serious accident or car theft. Instead, keep a photocopy of major purchase records (tires and batteries) in your glove compartment in case you need to replace the warranteed item while traveling?


E. Gardening Records
If you have a black thumb (like Paper Doll) or own nothing larger than a window box, skip this category. However, if your property includes plants, shrubbery, or heirloom flowers or you have a vegetable garden for which you need to maintain adequate rotation records, create a sub-section for your garden journal.

F. Decorating/Remodeling Plans – Keep items such as:

  • Project notes and plans for decorating and/or remodeling jobs
  • Project budgets
  • Photos of projects as they progress
  • Receipts* related to the project – *Note: this is one of the few times I recommend keeping receipts outside of the Financial section. However, when you’ve had work done that improves the ongoing value of your home, keeping the receipts and photographic records will be helpful for personal planning and long-term tax planning.

G. Warranties — Divide these by category:

  • Major appliances
  • Kitchen appliances
  • Computers
  • Entertainment/electronics
  • Gadgets
  • Furniture/carpets
  • Miscellaneous items

H. Instruction/Maintainance Manuals
Only keep the manual as long as you own the item. Seriously! If you give something to charity or sell it in a yard sale, provide the instruction manual; if you throw the item away, toss the manual! As with warranties, this category breaks down into:

Major appliance warranties and manuals for large items like your furnace, refrigerator, washer/dryer, etc.

Small household or personal appliance manuals (for items like toasters and hair dryers) –before you save the manual, consider whether there’s any information you would actually need. It’s rare to find adults who don’t know how to make toast or dry their hair.

Electronic toys and gadgets, as well as computer hardware and software, often have complex and detailed manuals which require a PhD to understand. Unlike the investment prospectus material I advised you to toss when we discussed financial paperwork, keep the electronics manuals even if you can’t make heads or tails out of them. Qualified repair technicians and ridiculously adept 12-year-olds seem to have no trouble with these manuals.


Instruction manuals don’t have to live in your file system. Depending on the number and nature of the appliances in your home, it may make sense to keep a three-ring binder with all of the kitchen appliance manuals right in your kitchen. (Just don’t waste valuable counter space; instead, tuck the folder in a seldom-used drawer or cabinet, such as the rarely-used space above your oven fan bonnet.) You can keep hardware and software manuals in a few magazine holders on the bookshelf nearest your computer.


It’s easy to be tempted to keep any paper related to your home “just in case”, but remember, clutter comes from deferring decision-making. Ask yourself:

Why/when would I need this paper?
If you know how to use hair dryer or grown your mini-Chia Pet, there’s little sense in keeping the manual. If you aren’t fluent in the language in which the manual is written, say hasta la vista!

What’s the worst that could happen if I tossed it out?
With many items, you can call the manufacturer’s customer service line to get help. Plus, there are a variety of web sites offering online manuals:

Next week: PERSONAL PAPERS

Posted on: December 4th, 2007 by Julie Bestry | No Comments


A doctor who cannot take a good history and a patient who cannot give one are in danger of giving and receiving bad treatment.

~Paul Dudley White, MD

Are your medical records pretty meager? Maybe you’ve kept up with your children’s immunization records, and you might have copy of your recent contact lens prescription, but if your life depended on knowing how long ago you had a particular procedure or who performed it, how quickly could you access the information?

Continuing our discussion of the family/personal filing and however everything can fit into one of five categories, we’ve reached:

Financial
Legal
Medical
Household
Personal

Doctors tend not to share medical paperwork, records, X-rays unless patients request them, opting to safeguard the records themselves, so you might have a pretty slim collection. In fact, you might think that you don’t need to keep any medical records at all because you can always get copies from your doctor. Actually, there are good reasons to maintain your own records:

  • You may need to access information in a hurry. (e.g., if your child’s summer camp calls to report a minor accident and wants to know how long ago your child’s last tetanus shot was.)
  • The doctor’s staff may be unreachable on weekends and holidays.
  • A change in insurance company may require you to provide detailed medical history information.
  • You may be able to avoid unnecessary medical tests if you can show you’ve already been tested.
  • Your doctor or dentist may retire before you have a chance to get copies of records.
  • You don’t have a regular optometrist and can’t recall where you last got an eye exam. (Was it at the mall? You remember there were holiday crowds…)
  • You vacation or work outside North America – you’ll often need proof of health and immunization for travel.

A little preventative organizing can literally save your life down the line. Start with these basics file sub-sections:

MEDICAL CONTACTS
Keep contact information for each medical professional each person in the family sees. Unless one family member sees a lot of specialists, a few sheets of paper tucked into a file in the front of the medical section usually suffices. In the tense moments of an emergency, you wouldn’t want to have to rely on your memory.

For each health care practitioner, include the name, address, phone and fax numbers, and email address. To get you started, collect information for:

  • Internist/Family practitioner
  • Gynecologist/obstetrician
  • Dentist
  • Optometrist/Ophthalmologist
  • Specialists
  • Alternative Care Practitioners (acupuncturist, herbalist, massage therapist)

Next, you want to create a hanging folder for each person in the family including at least these three folders for each specific area:

MEDICAL — include the following information:

  • Immunization records – when was your last tetanus booster shot?
  • Test Results (cholesterol and other blood test results with numbers, letters confirming results of mammograms, pap smears and bone density tests for women, prostate and other exams for men, etc.)
  • Medical History – keep notes regarding any serious illnesses, accidents or surgeries, transfusions or procedures; Download this sample form to get you started.
  • Pregnancy History – keep a copy of all test results and a simple log of any procedures
  • Mental health – as with physical health, note any mental health problems, treatments and medications as well as the dates
  • Medications

Sidebar on MEDICATION HISTORY
For most families, keeping a page in each individual’s “Medical” folder will be enough. However, if your family members take many prescriptions, you may wish to keep a separate folder to track all medications. Create a spreadsheet or online record where you can quickly update your prescriptions, and print a copy for your files in case you need to fax or quickly provide it to a physician or hospital.

Include each medication’s brand or generic name, dosage, frequency, prescriber (if applicable), purpose and date started. Include:

  • Prescriptions (e.g., oral contraceptives, preventative and curative medicines and acute-care drugs like epi pens and migraine medicine)
  • Dietary supplements – vitamins, minerals, beverages
  • Herbal remedies – include those recommended by alternative care providers like acupuncturists as well as any you’ve picked up at health food stores
  • Nonprescription medications — include aspirin-a-day therapies for preventing heart disease and stroke

DENTAL
Dental professionals vary in how much information they generally provide. If you don’t ever have a detailed dental treatment plan, don’t worry about this. However, if your doctor or orthodontist creates a treatment plan, keep it in this folder. Also, keep notes regarding when you’ve had dental X-rays and what procedures you’ve undergone. Dental health is closely tied to medical health, so a complete record is important.

VISION
If you often switch where you have eye exams, it’s essential to keep records of your prescriptions in order to gauge vision changes over time. Keep copies of your old eyeglass or contact prescriptions in this folder, in reverse chronological order.

The three categories (dental, medical, vision) usually suffice for most families. However, if anyone in the family has a specific, ongoing medical condition (allergies, arthritis, etc.) add extra manila folders to cover more extensive paperwork. For allergies, in particular, I suggest having one folder, with a page for each family member, noting whatever allergies they have to:

If you are single and in your twenties, your medical file may only include your immunization record and notes on occasional healthcare visits. However, starting your filing system early will make it much easier to know where to put notes as your medical history (and family) grows.


What if you don’t even have any medical records to even start this paperwork? I know, most of Paper Doll is about helping you get rid of excess paper, but this is one time you want to acquire paper.

One of your important legal rights under HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is the right to obtain copies of your medical records and to make sure the information within is accurate. HIPPA covers just about all medical records except your child’s K-12 school nurse records.

When you move or change doctors, or when your child goes off to college or starts his/her own filing system, use this letter template for requesting a copy of all your medical records, http://www.privacyrights.org/Letters/medical2.htm


Finally, if you have pets, keep veterinary medical records in hanging files just behind those of the human family members. Each pet needs just one file folder – you’re safe skipping special dental and vision files for pets.

To your health!

Next up:  Household Papers