Archive for ‘Paper Organizing’ Category

Paper Doll Shares 3 Quirky & Cool New Office Supplies

Posted on: March 18th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

Being organized and productive is about systems and skills. Too often, we’re tempted to believe that the ideal box or tub or app is the key to getting us where we want to be in our journey toward success. That’s actually a big fib that our perfectionist brains tell us, pushing us to procrastinate and not get started until everything is ideal.

That doesn’t mean that products can’t be useful and motivate us to embrace our systems or practice our skills. Sometimes, what we need to up our game is something that’s unusual or comes out of left field.

Last week, I encountered this colorful doggie. 

Understandably, what caught my attention was the cotton candy, tie-dye pink-and-purpleness of this little fella. It was only later that I looked carefully at the harness and saw that this is a cardiac alert dog, a service dog at work. (One of the badges on the harness notes that he is “Not a Magical Unicorn.”)

A worker-bee (or, in this case, worker dog) is useful, but there’s no reason it can’t also be quirky or different. To that end, today’s post looks at a few of the intriguing products I’ve seen recently that perform their tasks as designed but are also just a little bit unusual, enough to pump up our interest.

I’m not suggesting you have to purchase them. Rather, I’d like to encourage you to think about what features (color, form, style) appeal to you so that when you’re faced with tools and options in your life, you’ll stop to think whether you’re dazzled by the aesthetics, full stop, or whether it’s something you will actually use.

STICKY NOTE TO-DO LIST STENCIL

As with most of the quirky products I’ve found recently, this originally came to my attention via TikTok. A company called FTBT 3D Prints (short for Fix This Build That LLC) created the Sticky Note To-Do List Stencil for those who want to turn their blank, unlined sticky notes into checklists.

I appreciate the inclination. I start every day with a sticky note following my 1-2-3 approach to productivity. I have one big task (usually something I’ve been avoiding), two medium tasks, and three small tasks — all aside from things I would do everyday anyway, like checking and replying to email.

These help me focus on getting the most important and urgent work done. It doesn’t mean I won’t accomplish other tasks, just that I absolutely will complete the tasks I’ve set as essential.

The Alternatives

You may be wondering, why can’t someone just draw their own lines and/or check boxes/circles? Well, they absolutely can; indeed, that’s what I do every day on my sticky notes! Yay, me!

But there are some people who are more inspired by aesthetics than others, who want (to the point of needing) things to look good in order to feel right. I dislike the idea of feeling like everything has to be “perfect” in order to get started. However, if you are frozen in amber, inertia blocking any action, because things aren’t pretty, I am not going to spend eons trying to break through that obstacle with you. Another approach is needed. Sometimes, just getting started and making progress is necessary before you can fix the things that usually block you.

You might be thinking, OK, then why not buy the sticky notes that already have lines on them? You could definitely do that, too. There are a wide variety of generic sticky notes with lines, and a sub-set of those have check boxes (though, for some reason, many are rectangular rather than the traditional square), like these Gazelle sticky notes for $14.99 for a package of 400 notes.

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However, there are two potential obstacles. First, while I’m a big believer that many generic versions of organizing tools are fine, there are certain brand names that just work better than others, and Post-it! Notes have a much higher quality adhesive than generic sticky notes. Because of that, I’d really advise against purchasing random lined sticky notes in bulk.

Right, you may be thinking, but when people want this solution, can’t they just buy Post-it®-branded lined to-do lists notes? Well, 3M does make a wide variety of plain lined Post-it! Notes. Well, they can.

But shockingly, they haven’t created a widely available line of Post-it® Notes with check boxes or radio buttons. (Ahem, 3M, this is your cue, folks! Get on this!) 

There’s a far-less-easily found line of Noted by Post-it® products — you can sometimes locate individual products in Target or Staples — which include odd-sized products, like this Noted by Post-it®, Blue To-Do List Notes measuring 2.9″ x 5.7″. One package of 100 notes runs about $5. (Unfortunately, 3M almost never provides clear images on their site of their more niche products.)

Given this, I am cautiously optimistic about recommending consideration of the Sticky Note To-Do List Stencil. 

The Stencil

Each square stencil, suitable for any standard 3″ x 3″ sticky note, is manufactured from polyactic acid (PLA) filament, an eco-friendly plastic alternative made out of renewable resources.

The stencils come in ten colors: Ink Black, Radiant Red, Citrus Orange, Sunny Yellow, Emerald Green, Sky Blue, Royal Blue, Plush Purple, Pretty Pink, and Daylight White. You can also pick the “Mystery Color,” and the company will choose for you.

Any one stencil direct from the store is regularly $8 each, but they are currently on sale for $5, both from FTBT’s site and on TikTok.

You can also purchase bundles of 5 stencils in two different color schemes, Light (Sky Blue, Royal Blue, Plush Purple, Pretty Pink, and Daylight White) or Dark (Ink Black, Radiant Red, Citrus Orange, Sunny Yellow, and Emerald Green) for $29, or a Deluxe Bundle of all ten for $49. (Unless you’re homeschooling or have oodles of tiny humans, perhaps start with just one stencil, eh?)

Every stencil stencil has 10 lines, and you have the option of using the circular checkbox/radio button in anticipation of marking off completed tasks.

Additionally, while none of the company’s platforms have shown what the reverse of the stencil looks like, it appears that it must be somewhat hollow, as they recommend, “…when you’re not making a new list just flip over the stencil and use it to hold your stack of sticky notes so you’ll always have it at the ready.”

If you like the idea of using a stencil but aren’t sold on a circular check box (likely because boxes really do need to have straight edges), a few Etsy shops, including PrintPalaceXYZ and Vindion, have similar versions with square check boxes, in a similar price range.

MEMO WALLET

A few weeks ago, in Celebrate the Global Day of Unplugging, we talked extensively about the problems of always being connected. We reviewed the dangers of modern connectivity; in particular, we looked at the distractions, dangers to physical health, and the increased stress associated with constantly being plugged in. 

The problem is that across these first few decades of the 21st-century, we’ve lost the ability to capture thoughts on-the-go unless we have tiny computers in our pockets. People used to carry notebooks, Harriet the Spy-style to capture flashes of genius. Then, in the late 20th-century but before smartphones, there were Blackberries, PalmPilots, and other personal digital assistants (PDAs), to which people also quickly got addicted.

Indeed, twenty years ago, in 2004, Merlin Mann (founder of 43 Folders and coiner of the expression “Inbox Zero”) promoted the concept of the Hipster PDA, an alligator-clipped stack of index cards.

Initially a joke, Mann’s Introducing The Hipster PDA looked at a way to turn our collective backs on the expensive, theft-prone, and quickly addictive technology. 

Hipster PDA — CC BY-SA 2.0

The fact that it blended seamlessly with the themes and processes of David Allen’s Getting Things Done was also appealing. People invented templates (and, I’m guessing, stencils), and debated the best types of index cards (lined? graphed? dotted? traditional white or colored?) and enclosures (alligator clips or rubber bands?).

Two decades later, Nyckle Sijtsma of New Things Lab, a Dutch design studio, came up with a spin on the Hipster PDA, a way to detach from technology when out and about and still have the ability to brainstorm, create, write, and remember important things.

Simply put, MEMO Wallet is a distraction-free combination of a wallet and a miniature whiteboard. New Things Lab began MEMO Wallet with a Kickstarter and a goal of 4800 Euro; the effort was so popular that it hit €66,487 of backing in one month!

Made from high-quality, precision-grade aluminum 6063 alloy, the MEMO Wallet employs RFID-blocking technology to prevent against card-skimming and has space for securely holding up to six cards, three per side. It measures 4.25″ x 2.91″ x .43″ (108mm x 74mm x 11mm).

The MEMO Wallet has wear-resistant rubber elements to tightly grip cards and prevent unintentional slippage. When you’re ready, just slide your thumb upward against the vertical oval to access your cards. 

MEMO Wallet unfolds to reveal a 6-inch (diagonal) pocket whiteboard with a built-in, fine-point dry-erase pen with eraser. The aluminum whiteboard was created with a special heat-curing whiteboard paint to ensure that you can write smoothly on the surface without it squeaking. The pen clicks into place, nesting in the black outer edges of the whiteboard area, so you don’t need an elastic loop. (One MEMO Pen comes with the wallet; additional pens are sold separately in four-packs lasting 18-24 months, depending on usage.)

See the MEMO Wallet in action in just eleven seconds:

MEMO Wallet comes in four colors: Charcoal Black, Slate Grey, Gilded Rose, and a limited edition Revision Red.

Use the whiteboard for anything you’d put in a notebook — To-Do lists, notes, drawings, flow-charts — with confidence that when you fold everything back up, your scribbling will be protected. 

Obviously, a whiteboard lacks the (greater) permanence of using a notebook. It’s not going to sync over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth with your devices (since the goal is not to carry any) or with anything back at the office, so it requires intentionality.

Ostensibly, when you return to your home or workspace, you would rewrite anything that was still actionable or snap a photo of what’s on your whiteboard to upload it to Evernote or OneNote to enable optical character recognition for search at a later date.

The appeal is that you can disconnect from technology while reconnecting with your creativity. Without the incessant beeps and buzzes of texts, email, and app notifications, you can use the whiteboard to achieve mental clarity and focus for organizing your creative thoughts.

The MEMO Wallet won the 2024 iF Design Award.

One wallet is $69; two are $118; three wallets cost $169. If you purchase two or three MEMO Wallets, shipping is free. You can purchase it directly from New Things Lab.

NIIMBOT B21 THERMAL LABEL PRINTER

As a professional organizer, I love talking about the importance of labeling. What you name something helps you remember where to put it, where to find it later, and generally how to think about it in relationship to other things, both categorically and sequentially.

My favorite label maker is the Brother PT-65, which isn’t even made any more. I’ve had it 22 years, since just before I began my professional organizing business.

It takes six AA batteries, and although I use it almost every day that I’m with clients, I probably only have to replace the batteries every few years. It’s a workhorse.

Over the years, I’ve tested other label makers from Brother, Dymo, Martha Stewart, and a variety of other manufacturers. Most have their merits and drawbacks, and while I have a few back-ups I’ve received as gifts over the years, I’m sticking with my PT-65 for as long as it will stick with me.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate variations. In September, in Paper Doll Explores New & Nifty Office and School Supplies, I wrote about the PrintRGo thermal pocket printer, which sadly doesn’t appear to be the market right now.

A number of readers contacted me after that post, telling me that they bought the printer and were delighted by it, so I’m happy to see that many other similar miniature thermal label printers have remained on the market, including the Printago, which I’d also mentioned.


The latest thermal printer that caught my eye (and yes, I first saw it on TikTok, but don’t tell my congressman) is the Niimbot B21. it’s designed to look like mid-20th-century typewriter. The teeny printer comes in green, red, black, and creamy white. (While the other colors are probably more mid-century accurate, the red one is so cool!)

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The Niimbot B21 smart label printer is ink-free, printing on BPA-free thermal paper, and supports multiple width labels (40mm x 20mm, 50mm x 30mm, 50mm x 40mm, and 50mm x 50mm). The Niimbot B21 can auto-identify which label paper has been inserted.

The labels are waterproof, tear-, oil- and abrasion-resistant, and allegedly have strong adhesion but are easy to peel and remove. Each Niimbot B21 comes with one package of 50x30mm labels (230 labels per roll). 

It supports a wide variety of design customization, including: 19 fonts, more than 1500 icons, 100+ graphic frames for around the text, and 16 languages, and it can print 203 dpi images. Use it to print a variety of labels for your household or workplace, including labels with product specifications, addresses, prices, ingredients, etc.

You create the labels in the app. They can include text, icons/emoji, pictures, QR codes, and bar codes. You can also have labels with simple multi-row tables. Once the label looks as you like, print it from the app to the B21 printer.

The Niimbot prints labels at 2.4 inches (60 mm) per second, and can work four hours continuously after 1 1/2 hours of charging.  The Niimbot B21 is designed to be quick to set up:

  1. Download the free Niimbot App at the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app’s function include scanning, image recognition, and batch printing, serial number are offered
  2. Turn on your device’s Bluetooth (if it’s not already on).
  3. Click on “Unconnected” in the Niimbot App to pair and connect to your device.

The Niimbot B21 thermal label printer is $59.39 on Amazon (for all colors) or $69.99 direct from the Niimbot store. See it in action.

While none of these items are must-haves, they might make your time at your desk (or away from it) a little more fun. What do you think? Would you buy any of these?

Paper Doll Springs Ahead with Three Empowering Concepts

Posted on: March 11th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 18 Comments

SPRING HAS (ALMOST) SPRUNG

After a long, dark winter, we’re finally seeing some sure signs of springtime.

For example, we just set the clocks forward an hour. However you feel about Daylight Saving Time (and there are arguments on both sides), it’s likely you enjoyed having more daylight hours in the evening, even if it was just to complain about how tired you were from “losing” that hour the night before. 

Depending on where you live, you may have started to see signs of nature’s transitions. Here in Tennessee, the Bradford pear trees started flowering about ten days ago, meaning that about five days ago, a rain and windstorm plastered white petals all over our front doors and our cars. 

(Bradford pear trees smell like fish. Some say rotting fish. Allegedly, this scent attracts pollinators; apparently spring is not only the time when a young man’s fancy turns to love, but a young bee’s fancy turns to the delights of rotting fish.)

Spring Cleaning the Stuff

This time of year also brings to mind spring cleaning. First, there’s a tradition of literal spring cleaning. There’s no agreement on how this ritual began, though there are theories that it relates to either cultural-, religious-, or climate-related histories.

Some people place the tradition of spring cleaning at Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which coincides with the first day of spring. Practitioners observe whole-house cleaning called khaneh tekani, or “shaking the house.”

In Judaism, as the days advance toward Passover, homes are rid of “chametz” (anything leavened, usually meaning bread, but more generally any food item that rises or expands, the eating of which is forbidden during the holiday); at the end of the literal cleaning, there’s a ritualistic cleaning with a feather, a spoon, and a candle!

The night before the first seder (a dinner and reading of a book about the exodus from Egypt), observant Jews perform the Bedikat Hametz, one last symbolic check for anything leavened. Instead of using a vacuum, broom, or Swiffer, practitioners shine the light of a candle in corners and crevices, dusting any microscopic crumbs into a spoon.

As Passover and Easter are generally close on the calendar, it’s no surprise that Eastern Orthodox and Catholic families practice cleaning rituals (in the home and at church) at varying points during Lent.

Meanwhile, in Europe and North America, before wall-to-wall carpets and Roombas, early spring bridged the chasm between the cold, windy winters and hot, buggy summers; springtime let people open the windows and doors to fresh air, sweep out the schmutz of lamps lit by whale oil or kerosene and home interiors darkened by coal soot, and generally avoid too much of the yucky aspects of nature coming in. (Oddly, there’s no historical record of people rejecting spring cleaning because of the scent of fishy pear trees!)

Decluttering is closely aligned with cleaning, spring or otherwise. The more you have, the more your space (and your energy) is blocked. Sensibly, then, spring is a common time for people to face the excess around them and set it free. The warmer weather and additional sunshine doesn’t just find us shrugging off our hibernation habits, but combing through closets and drawers to see what can be winnowed away.

Spring Cleaning Our Minds

Spring cleaning (and spring in general) calls to mind letting go of tangible stuff, but also giving ourselves a second chance (the first having been New Year’s Day) to let go of unpleasant, unhealthy, or unfortunate habits. As I wrote about in Organizing A Fresh Start: Catalysts for Success, there are a variety of ways to make fresh starts for ourselves, whether to coincide with new years, new quarters, new months, or holidays.

There’s one other fresh start I like to practice, and that’s tying spring cleaning to my birthday (which falls later this week). Letting go of what isn’t necessary (or useful), whether physical or mental, and clearing out the cobwebs in my mind, as I approach a new year of selfhood, helps me feel better about my next approaching cycle around the sun.

Benjamin Franklin said that “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” If Ben had been Bettina, she certainly would have written about the certainty of wrinkles (what the cosmetic companies delightfully call “fine lines”) and the unkindness of gravity, but using the days around the onset of spring and my birthday to declutter and refresh my life makes me feel a bit more empowered to fight the onslaught of age-related dilapidation.

To that end, and especially after 2 1/2 months straight of posts about serious topics covering the tangible (master classes on paper management, organizing blended libraries to keep domestic peace) and the scary (unplugging to avoid the physical and mental health dangers of being always-on, avoiding being the victim of a scams), today’s post is designed to declutter the bits and pieces I’ve been saving in my head. They’re scraps and remnants, too good to be discarded unused, but perhaps not large or fancy enough to stand on their own. 

MAKE THINGS EARN A PLACE IN YOUR LIFE

Brazilian novelist and lyricist Paul Coelho is most famous for his book The Alchemist. 

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In addition to his books, Coelho is known for several super-positive quotes designed to uplift, including:

  • When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.
  • There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
  • It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

However, the Paul Coelho quote (in full) that keeps coming back to me is, “I think it’s important to realize that you can miss something but not want it back.”

The Paul Coelho quote that keeps coming back to me is, *I think it's important to realize that you can miss something but not want it back.* Share on X

Whoa. There are so many different ways to think about this. Professionally, I’m inclined to take this literally. So often, clients have stuff — lots of stuff — that doesn’t fit their bodies, their lifestyles, their values, or their goals. We then work to let go of the tangible things that don’t serve the person they are now, or the person they are trying to become.

But the “something” that is missed may not be clutter — it may be a person, a relationship, or an experience. It can be hard (but so enlightening) to recognize that we can feel a powerful enough connection to something from our past to miss it, but still acknowledge that we don’t want it back, either because it’s not good for us or possibly just because we’ve outgrown it. 

You may be wistful about something from your teenage years, but I doubt very much that you’d like to be fifteen again for longer than the duration of an idle daydream.

Set aside your memories of lazy afternoons doodling your initials and those of a certain special someone on the paper bags you fashioned into book covers. Instead, spend a moment recalling the scent of the high school cafeteria’s chipped beef on toast, the taunts of “mean girls,” the inability to control almost any aspect of your living situation — or for any of you not significantly younger than I am, the complete absence of coffee culture or Google. I’ll stay this age, thankyouverymuch!

Often, when I work with clients, the thing holding them back from letting go of tangible clutter is the imagined life that clutter represents. As I talked about in The Boo-Hoo Box: Organizing Painful Clutter, “Letting go of your college boyfriend’s tacky breakup letter won’t absolve him of the pain he caused you. But it will set you free from the cycle of pain you experience every time you re-encounter it.”

Letting go of your college boyfriend's tacky breakup letter won't absolve him of the pain he caused you. But it will set you free from the cycle of pain you experience every time you re-encounter it. Share on X

There are aspects of our lives that we miss — even the painful parts — because we knew them well, we understood them and they felt as much a part of us as the freckle on the back of our wrist. It’s understandable that we miss the things that helped make us who we are today — the good and the not-so-good — but if we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t really want them back.

I try to encourage my clients to ask themselves whether something has earned the right to be in their lives, whether it’s a tangible item, an obligation on their schedule, a thought they struggle to let go of, or a personal relationship.

I’m not sure how Paul Coelho would feel about knowing I triangulated Scandal‘s Fitz and Olivia (whom I truly hope are now making jam at that house in Vermont) with his quote about missing something and wanting it back, with things having to earn a place in our lives, but all of these have been taking up space in my cognitive closet, and it’s time to set them free.

FIND THE ESSENCE

The next quote is a more recent one from James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter. Clear wrote,

“The simplest way to clarify your thinking is to write a full page about whatever you are dealing with and then delete everything except the 1-2 sentences that explain it best.”

This reminds me of a beloved story about Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. (You may know him by his first name, Michelangelo. He’s like Cher in that way.)

His famed marble sculpture David was carved from an 18-foot high marble block that even Leonardo da Vinci had determined was of inferior quality and thus unworkable. David took Michelangelo the better part of four years, finishing in 1504.

Four years, the amount of time it takes (or is supposed to take) to finish college. Do you wonder if Michelangelo’s mother worried about the future of his career as an artist? Do you think she fretted that he should at least learn accounting for something to fall back on?

But I digress.

When asked about his process in creating this work of timeless genius, Michelangelo is reported to have said…something.

By one account, he is alleged to have stated, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” which seems quite poetic, whether spoken in Italian (“Ho visto l’angelo nel marmo e l’ho scolpito finché non l’ho liberato”) or English.

By other accounts, Michelangelo is said to have replied, “It’s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.”

In all likelihood, the great artist probably said nothing of the kind, in any language. We can’t be sure. (However, we do know that he probably spoke Tuscan Italian with a Florentine accent, so we’re at least able to read the remnants of things we’re sure he said, or at least wrote, unlike others of his era who spoke different dialects of the city-states that existed after the fall of the Roman Empire and before Italian unification. Remember, Italy has only been a country since 1861, so “Italian” has only been one particular language since then!) 

Whether we’re looking at the actual quote from James Clear or the (likely apocryphal) quote from Michelangelo, the truth is that at the heart of the matter, what’s important is in there, somewhere, under all the clutter.

With all of the writing and talking that we professional organizers and productivity specialists share about decluttering what isn’t essential and prioritizing what is, I’m not sure the concept could be conveyed any more clearly than what we get from the Clear/Michelangelo idea.

At the heart of our homes, there are spaces that give us comfort, and to find them, we need to keep sifting away the detritus of daily life — the junk mail, the plastic shopping bags, the empty cereal boxes, the broken earphones — until we find clear surfaces to sit comfortably with our loved ones and talk about what’s important.

In our workspaces, the digital desktops covered with different versions of the same files (ImportantProject.final.version7.reallyfinal) and actual desktops piled high with documents we will never file (and if we filed, would never actually read) all distract us from the brilliant work that is within us, if only we could find our way clear.

And, as always, it’s never just about the tangible stuff. Our schedules are filled with meetings that should have been emails, and so many projects that should have been cues to realize we belonged in entirely different careers. Our heads are full of so many good ideas, but they battle it out with fears, doubts, and self-recriminations such that there’s no quiet space in our brains to focus on those great ideas. 

Which brings me to the last quote cobweb that’s been hanging out in my head.

STOP WAITING ‘UNTIL’

I’ve been reading Jon Acuff‘s Finish: Give Yourself The Gift of Done, which proposes ways to achieve your goals by removing the kinds of pressure that perfectionism places on us.  

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In Finish, Acuff talks about “noble obstacles,” dark and twisty things perfectionism causes us to put in the path of our success. One example he gives is the concept of “until,” wherein we can’t start on anything until we do the thing that comes before it, and we can’t do the thing before that until we do one task prior.

Acuff says:

“Until” is a hurdle you throw up on your track until the lane is so clogged you couldn’t possibly get started today. Look at all those obstacles. Today’s not the best day to go.

The tricky thing is that “until” often wears a cloak of responsibility. It pretends that it’s not about being lazy but about making sure everything is in order before you start. It would be foolish to come up with a great invoice system until I really know what my business is about. Once I have a core mission, the rest of the pieces will fall into place, but until then, it would be wasted effort.

Until I know why I have an issue with food, I can’t walk around the block at a brisk pace for more minutes today than I did yesterday. 

Until I know what my entire book is about I can’t write the first hundred words.

Until I know where all the stuff in every room of my house is going to go I can’t clean this one room.

Until is sneaky, so you have to be sneaky, too. If perfectionism keeps you (like it keeps almost everyone) from moving forward out of a fear of making a mistake, try the opposite approach.

Intentionally make a mistake. Or, at least, don’t try to put forth your best effort. Yes, really.

You can’t edit a blank page. Don’t sit down with the intention of writing a masterpiece or a pitch-perfect presentation.

Instead, spend 30 minutes emptying your thoughts onto the paper or screen. You don’t have to know what the finished version will look like. You don’t even have to write complete sentences. But get all your bad ideas out in the open and you may find that some of them are workable. One might even be that angel Michelangelo set free from the marble. But you’ll never know if you don’t start. Don’t wait for “until.”

You can’t get fit waiting until you find the perfect exercise routine. Whatever you hope to accomplish, whether you want to be able to run a marathon or just fit into your pre-pandemic clothes, you don’t need to wait until the right class opens at your gym or until you find the cutest athleisure outfit.

Just go for a walk or a swim or do an exercise video or take a class. And if you don’t like it, do something different tomorrow. And something else the next day. Sure, at some point, consistency in some kind of program will probably help you hit your goals faster and with increasing skill and confidence. But waiting “until” something before you start means you’ll probably never start.

You can’t get organized by waiting until you have entirely free weeks (or months) to address your clutter. Prospective organizing clients will call and explain their goals, but say they have to wait until they have time to complete the entire project. 

Nope. Organizing doesn’t work like that, either. You need to purge a little, organize a little, and then live with your systems for a little while to see what you need to tweak. People want to wait until the perfect time, but there is no such thing.

We all find ourselves stuck in the mud of “until.” As Acuff says, it wears that cloak of responsibility, making us think we’re protecting our time and effort and money by doing the right thing. But we might very well wait until…forever.

As 19th-century Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev said,  

“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin.”

Happy springtime, and I have three wishes for my birthday for all of you:

  • May you feel the difference between missing something and actually wanting it so you can demand something earn its right to be in your life.
  • May you find the essence of your space and your schedule so you can focus on what’s truly important. And,
  • May you start something — anything — unencumbered by that “false responsibility” of waiting until all your game pieces are in position. Just start. 

Slam the Scam! Organize to Protect Against Scams

Posted on: March 4th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 18 Comments

Rotary Phone Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

Being organized and productive depends on having systems in place. The problem is that sometimes things happen that throw all of our carefully curated systems out the window. Things like getting the flu, having your car break down (or get stolen), your computer crashing — or getting scammed. 

It’s shockingly easy to fall for a scam, and frustratingly difficult to recover financially and legally after being a victim. It may require time, money, the services of specialists (like attorneys) and more. The best thing you can do is to organize yourself to protect against being victimized.

SCAMMERS PREY ON EVERYONE

You may have heard about a recent viral article in The Cut by Charlotte Cowles, the online magazine’s financial advice columnist. You wouldn’t have expected someone with that professional identity to write a column entitled, The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger. But she fell for a scam, and she fell hard. And now, risking public and professional embarrassment, she has spoken out. 

For weeks, there’s been debate online regarding what happened to Cowles. Many people can’t imagine that a grown woman with a professional background in financial writing could have been fooled by the ring of scammers who convinced Cowles that they were representatives of Amazon, of the Federal Trade Commission, and of the CIA.

But scams are real, they are everywhere, and we need to organize ourselves (and warn our loved ones) to be vigilant. Gallup found that 15% of American households were victims of financial scams just last year.

Graph provided by Gallup

And, while we tend to think of victims as being older, every demographic group is at risk. In fact, younger adults (like Gen Z and the youngest Millennials) are overrepresented as victims of scamming (at 22%); meanwhile Gen Xers like Paper Doll and Baby Boomers are somewhat less likely to be scammed, at 9% and 14%, respectively.

The rate of victimization is lower among adults without a college education and with lower incomes than those who have college educations and who earn at least $50,000 per year. One might surmise that both of the latter groups have more opportunity to be warned and prepared to identify elements of scams. 

But people with education, experience, savvy, and money can also be scammed. Last month, author Cory Doctorow wrote How I Got Scammed, explaining how a Christmas holiday travel week, a failed ATM transaction, and the post Alaska Air 737 Max door-plug disaster created a perfect storm for him being taken advantage by a phone-phishing fraudster pretending to be from his credit union.

Sometimes, a scam is obvious. Out of nowhere, you’ll be cooking or watching TV and the phone will ring. A mysterious and heavily accented speaker will say that there is “something seriously wrong with your Microsoft computer.” It doesn’t matter if you actually have a Mac, or if you don’t even have a computer. They’ll use that wearily patient voice so identifiable as IT customer support.

You immediately know it’s fake; but would your grandparents? Would your teenager? 

Other scams are less obvious because they come wrapped in the kind of tech-related language we see every day. In just the 24 hours prior to writing this post, Paper Doll and Paper Mommy experience attempted scams.

I received an email claiming that I’d purchased $500+ in services, and if had not made those purchases, I should immediately click to be connected with the company’s fraud department. Of course, merely hovering my cursor over the return email address (displayed as the company’s name) showed it was actually sent by gibberishletters@Yahoo.com. Real companies don’t use Yahoo addresses; in theory, they shouldn’t even use Gmail addresses. Dependable companies have their own domains.

Meanwhile, Paper Mommy got the all-too-common email advising her to click because her iCloud was full. [Be assured, her iCloud was not full. It has a backup of her iPad and probably a few dozen photos and not much more.] Paper Mommy may be 87, but she is one smart cookie, and even if she hadn’t received one of these same phishing attempts previously, she knows enough to verify such things.

However, it’s common enough to get random notification texts, popups, and emails claiming that something is awry. One of the immediate clues is bad spelling, grammar, or punctuation, something that older generations are more likely to take seriously; a 50- or 70-year-old is more likely to immediately realize that a poor command of English (in an email sent, ostensibly, by an American company to an American customer) is a sign of a scam. Thus, given the propensity of younger people for text-speak and a lesser reliance on standard usage, younger adults might be more easily tripped up.

Still other scams prey on the inclination of individuals to be good natured. One popular scam comes in the guise of a text regarding a sick or injured dog. The sender addresses you by the wrong name and says that they’re at the vet; their dog won’t eat and is whimpering, and they’re waiting for assistance. I “fell” for such a scam a few months ago, in that I replied and said, “Sorry, you have the wrong person. I hope everything turns out OK for you and the dog.”

Sad Doggie Photo by Bruno Cervera at Pexels

I thought nothing more of it until the person kept texting and trying to inveigle me in conversation, asserting that I must be a dog lover, too. (Readers, while I’d hate for you to think I’m a Disney villainess, I’m not fond of animals in person, though I do love monkeys, puppies, kittens, and penguins, as long as they’re on my device screens and nowhere near me.)

I Googled, and immediately found that this is a long-running scam to convince text recipients to get emotionally enmeshed in the condition of the dog, and end up giving money. One can understand how Congressman George Santos managed to set up fake Go Fund Me accounts for animal care and steal the proceeds. People are softies and want to be kind.

We’re also inclined to be law-abiding. There have been a number of jury duty scams where recipients get calls or texts saying that there’s a bench warrant for them to be arrested because they have not shown up for jury duty. Sometimes, recipients are warned that deputies are on the way to arrest them unless they pay a fee over the phone, or buy gift cards and send them to the caller.

Government agencies don’t text you out of the blue. In most cases, none but teeny, hyper-local government offices will even email. They certainly don’t take payment in gift cards. 

Scams are designed to prey on your lack of experience or information, your good nature, and your fear of getting in trouble (as with Cowles’ example). Do not let scammers waste your time, ruin your productivity, or take advantage of your goodwill.

SOCIAL SECURITY: SLAM THE SCAM DAY

The Social Security Administration has declared this Thursday, March 7, 2024 Slam the Scam Day!

On National Slam the Scam Day and throughout the year, the SSA provides tools to help seniors and others recognize scams related to Social Security and prevent scammers from stealing both funds and personal information.

Social Security and Paper Doll want you to protect yourself, your loved ones, and people in your community this Slam the Scam Day by educating everyone about government imposter scams. Discuss the issue and let people in your life know they shouldn’t be embarrassed to report if they shared personal information or suffered a financial loss. It’s important to report scams as quickly as possible, both to aid recovery and identify the culprits.

The Social Security Administration encourages us to share their Scam Alert fact sheet to help educate others about how to protect themselves. Report Social Security-related scams to the Social Security Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

If you do encounter scammers in any way related to Social Security, report the scam online with as much information as you have regarding the characteristics of their claims. 

Social Security encourages you to visit www.ssa.gov/scam for more information and follow the SSA OIG accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Those accounts aren’t going to share the newest viral dances or memes, but will keep you informed of the latest nasty tactics. Please consider sharing this post with the #SlamtheScam hashtag on your social media platforms.

OTHER SCAMS TARGETING SENIORS

Scams targeting seniors aren’t limited to those involving Social Security. 

The “Grandma, I’m in Jail!” scam has been prevalent for more than a decade. Your phone rings and you hear a young person’s distraught voice begging for help. The caller, ostensibly your grandchild, has somehow accidentally run afoul of the law and is in jail. “Please send bail money but don’t tell Mom and Dad,” the caller begs, providing a phone number and case number; you call as directed and the faux police officer verifies the case number and takes your money. These scams assume Grandma doesn’t hear your voice often enough to recognize it on the phone.

Help your grandparents not fall for such scams by 1) explaining how they work and 2) calling them more often so that they recognize your voice!

Photo by RepentAndSeekChristJesus on Unsplash

Elders are often the victims of medical scams designed to impersonate legitimate agencies related to Medicare, diabetes supplies, medical equipment, hospice, and more. Romance scams, which prey on lonely people of all ages, but especially tender-hearted seniors, are also on the rise.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is great resource for keeping on top of scams targeting the elderly. Bookmark AARP’s Scams and Fraud page to learn about new schemes as they become known.

KNOW THE SCAMMERS’ TRICKS

Similar to “Grandma, I’m in Jail” is “Dad, I’ve had a car accident!” There’s loud traffic noise (and perhaps sirens) in the background and the faux-distraught caller is saying that they’ve caused an accident and that the police say they need to pay a fine right away. Don’t fall for it.

Remember how I said that government agencies won’t ask for payment in gift cards? Neither will your boss. The Do Me a Favor scam shows up via email or text, when your boss (or maybe the CEO of your company) sends a message asking you to purchase gift cards for a work-related charity promotion, promising to pay you back after he receives them.

Yeah, no. The email or text may look like it’s coming from your work contact, your church leader, or your Facebook friend, but it’s almost certainly not.

Similarly, your friends aren’t going to be at the Paris Olympics and lose their wallets and ask you to send them money via Facebook.

The best way to organize yourself against scams is to stay informed of what scams are popular. When you know what to expect, it’s easier to identify scammers and avoid engaging. 

DON’Ts AND DOs TO KEEP YOURSELF SAFE FROM SCAMMERS

DON’T CLICK — If you receive an email or text with links to your bank or other financial account, go instead to the official website and log in from there. If you don’t know the URL, look it up on the back of your bank or credit card or on your statements. And, as you’ve been told since the dawn of email, do not click on attachments from somebody you don’t know.

DON’T TRUST — The Caller ID may say that the inbound call is coming from your bank or the IRS, but it’s ridiculously easy to “spoof” (that is, fake) the identity of a caller. Consider not answering; scammers rarely leave voicemail.

Don’t assume that the caller having the last four digits of your Social Security number or even all of the digits of your account number is on the up-and-up; there’s just too much of our private information on the dark web. Instead, hang up and call the official number for your financial institution and request to be connected to the fraud department.

DON’T DIVULGE — If a stranger claiming to be from your bank or credit card’s fraud department contacts you, ask for a case number. Do not give out your personal information. Do not give out your PIN.

DON’T SAY YES — Do not answer questions in the affirmative. That is, if they ask, “Is this Jane Smith?” don’t say yes; if you must say something, reply, “What is this regarding?” Your voice could be recorded and cloned for AI-related scams. The less you say, the better.

DON’T RUSH (OR BE RUSHED) — It’s the nature of scammers, like the stereotypical used car salesman, to use the pressure of time to get you act against your best interest. Don’t be fooled into making a decision or taking action quickly. Check with advisors, whether more technologically savvy friends or relatives, your accountant or financial advisor, your attorney, or the police.

DO READ UP — The American Bankers Association has a nifty website called BankersNeverAskThat.com. The site explains what to watch out for in terms of email, text, phone, and payment app scams, and also has a great eight-question quiz where you can walk through the situations (on your own, or as part of coaching with a loved one) to identify whether something is a scam or legitimate.

For reference, I did pretty well, but I dithered on the question regarding payment app alerts; if you’ve only recently begun using apps like Zelle, Venmo, or other peer-to-peer payment services, you might find the example sneaky, too, so read (and share) AARP’s How to Avoid Scams on Zelle, Venmo and Other P2P Apps.

The site offers a goofy “retro” scam-themed video game and a series of lighthearted videos to drive the point home.

DO HAVE FAMILY PASSWORDS — Schools have security that was non-existent when I was a kid; there are lists of who is allowed to pick up little Johnny or Janey from school to ensure not only that there’s no Stranger Danger but that wackadoodle exes and pushy in-laws don’t insert themselves between you and your kids. Modern parenting includes having family passwords so that if someone says, “Hi, your mommy told me to come pick you up from soccer practice today,” even if the child recognizes Mommy’s best friend as Auntie Karen, the kids know to wait for the official password.

This concept should be applied to families at all ages. Have a communication password designed so that if Grandma or Dad or College Kid gets a call purporting to be from one of the others and is in in need of emergency funds, there’s a level of security involved. (But, y’know, if Grandma calls from jail too often, maybe let her think about the consequences of her actions for a little while.)

DO TELL THE AUTHORITIES — No matter how embarrassing it is to have been scammed, it’s important to report suspected and actual scams.

  • Notify your bank, credit card company, brokerage, or other financial institution immediately. If scammers have actually taken your money via credit card, the company should be able to flag the transaction as fraud and reverse it immediately; other financial institutions may also be able to freeze the transaction and save your money. Take screenshots of texts or emails, and don’t delete the original messages in case law enforcement wants to dig more deeply into the source code. 
  • Contact the police, and file a police report. Do not be dissuaded if the police officer seems blasé about the crime.

My credit card company once notified me that someone had used my card number to buy an inordinate amount of mail order men’s underwear and stereo equipment. Algorithms had already flagged the purchases as fraud, but they asked me to file a police report. The police officer who took the report at my workplace could not have looked more bored if I’d asked him to watch paint dry. It doesn’t matter. Report!

  • File reports with applicable state and federal agencies. Whether the case involves the Social Security Administration, Medicare, or other federal crimes, report scams to the applicable agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as your state’s bureau of investigation all have fraud departments. Learn more at the FTC’s Reportfraud.ftc.gov and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov. 

THE FUTURE OF SCAMS

Scams — and scammers — aren’t going away. There will always be scammers who take advantage of anyone more easily duped because they have less information, less experience, and fewer people watching out for them. But, as I alluded to earlier, there are higher tech scams on the horizon.

Artificial intelligence is scary. I bet you’ve heard about deepfakes, video imitations made to sound and look like a real person is saying something they never actually said.  

Voiceprints and voice cloning constitute the audio version of deepfakes. A scammer can record you — or take your teenager’s Instagram or TikTok video — and create a completely new message using words and expressions that were never actually said, and then create an “emergency” where it’s believable that money or your Social Security number or other private information is requested. If your college-age kid still hasn’t memorized his Social Security number, you might be tempted to believe it if “he” calls from a spoofed number that looked like his and says he’s filling out a form at school and needed his (or your) digits. 

Voice cloning is already being used. Scammy deepfake videos could just as easily be to sent via Facetime or text video. Be careful.

FUNNY THINGS (NOT) TO DO TO SCAMMERS

You shouldn’t engage with scammers, so don’t emulate Paper Mommy or her friend in the stories below. Still, it’s fun to imagine retribution against bad guys.

When I was a teen, my mother was visiting a friend, a suburban woman of (shall we say) means. A phone scammer interrupted their visit and was urgently pushing some sort of financial scheme. Mom’s friend told the caller that she was sorry, but he’d have to wait, that her husband busy shoveling the cow s***.

Later, my mother spoke of her friend’s response with a twinkle in her eye. 

Paper Mommy, as longtime readers know, is a hoot. After a friend briefly fell prey to the “Grandma, I’m in jail!” scam (until she learned that her teen grandson was fast asleep in his own bed), Paper Mommy began plotting her revenge on scammers. A few years ago, she called me with delight to report that the day she’d been anticipating had finally arrived.

“Grandma, I need your help!” the voice implored. The scammer had already made a tactical error; much to Paper Mommy‘s chagrin, neither my sister nor I have made her a grandmother. My mom tut-tutted as the scammer wove his tale, offering periodic, “Oh, no, darling! … Oh, you poor thing? … You need me to send you money?”

She kept him on the line for eons, repeatedly leading the evil-doer to believe she was prepared to turn over her credit card number to secure grandson’s release. Oh, she just had to find her purse. Oh, fiddlesticks, where was her wallet? Just when his frustration led him to almost crack and he implored, “Grandma, aren’t you going to help me?” my mom uttered her Oscar-worthy line:

“No, Sweetheart. I never really liked you that much.” Click.

 

#SlamTheScam

Celebrate the Global Day of Unplugging

Posted on: February 26th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 14 Comments

From the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you finally nod off at night, do you experience over-stimulation? Do you suffer from over-availability, whether to your boss, colleagues, or clients, or to everyone who wants to talk to you about their political campaigns or your auto warranty?

Even if you’re overly connected with the world via glass screens, do you feel a lack of connection — with your loved ones, nature, or even your inner self?

Have I’ve got a holiday for you! From sundown this Friday, March 1, 2024 until sundown on Saturday, it is the Global Day of Unplugging!

WHAT IS THE GLOBAL DAY OF UNPLUGGING?

The Global Day of Unplugging is an annual campaign to bring attention to the importance of taking a break from 21st-century technology, whether that’s your computer, your cell phone, or your brand new Apple Vision Pro. The goal is to embrace person-to-person connection, the kind where you can see deeply into someone else’s eyes because you’re in the same space at the same time.

It’s not that digital engagement is bad, per se. Zoom meetings and remote work means we reduce our overall carbon footprint from work-related road trips and airline travel. Cell phones (even if people mostly communicate by text) let us know when our friends are running late or if the kids need someone to pick them up. 

But being on-all-the-time keeps us from ever refreshing. When it’s our boss that keeps us connected, that’s toxic, as we’ve discussed previously:

I mean, we could move to France, as covered in the first post above, or to Australia, which has just voted to allow workers to ignore after-hours phone calls and email from their companies. That could help reduce any employer-related tethering to our devices.

But we do this same damage to ourselves! Like a digital pacifier, we reach for our devices when we’re bored or anxious: in line at the grocery store, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, on the other end of the couch from our kids or significant other.

Technology is pushed on us from above and from all sides, but it has the potential to become an addiction that pushes us further away from our loved ones.

Wouldn’t you benefit from a little escape? For one 24-hour period starting on Friday, people from all four corners of the globe (yes, I know globes have no corners), will intentionally walk away from their digital lives and meet IRL (in real life).

WHY UNPLUG?

Let’s look at the dangers of the attention economy, which treats our eyeballs (attention) as a scarce commodity. We can prevent some of the problems by decluttering our digital spaces; other parts require concerted efforts at unplugging.

Distractions

Our computers and devices bring so much digital clutter to our attention. Some of it involves what other people want us to pay attention to, things we may or may not find important. But other distractions we bring on ourselves by clicking our way into deeper and deeper rabbit holes, directing us to an article online or a video on TikTok, but then we stay, enraptured and forget what we were doing.

These distractions take our focus off where we intend it to be. Intention is how we make sure we handle what we prioritize and not someone else’s priorities. Decluttering minimizes those distractions.

When we’re organized in our homes or offices, the clutter and inefficient systems make it hard to find what we want when we want it. Digital clutter is more insidious because we don’t even realize that we’re being distracted — we’ve become so used to it, and because nobody else sees our digital clutter they don’t call attention to it.

When we eliminate digital excess and distractions and create new, more efficient pathways, we feel calmer and more in control. When that happens, we’re in the zone, better able to do deep work and get into flow, with less wasted time searching for whatever we want — or what our boss or client wants.

However, of all the ways digital addiction hurts us, perhaps the distractions and lack of productivity are the least important.

Physical Health

Digital overuse is bad for our physical health. We develop bad posture from shlumping at our desks, gripping our phones, and hyperextending our necks.

Tech Neck is an informal term for the medical condition we experience when we use our devices. We flex our necks and shoulders, causing strain strain on the muscles and joints; the more we do it, the greater the build-up of tension, leading to muscle pain and headaches. Some research even suggests that overusing mobile devices can cause bone spurs to form at the nexus between the neck and head!

Additionally, exposure to the blue light emitted by phones, tablets, and computer screens can cause insomnia and decrease the quality of our sleep, which can further impact our ability to focus. Of course, when our attention span is decreased (whether due to sleepless nights or being trained to think in tweet-length chunks of language), it takes ever more effort to interpret complex material or be creative.

And, of course, repeated digital interruptions from our devices leads to higher rates of exhaustion and stress-induced ailments. 

Stress

Speaking of stress, staying plugged in messes up our psyches in multiple ways:

  • Information overload leads to overwhelm — To borrow a movie title, it can seem like we’re dealing with everything everywhere all at once. Your work, your children’s homework portal, national disasters, politics — it’s all so important.

The problem with everything seeming like a priority is that eventually nothing is a priority. All issues, large and small, compete on a stage the size of the planet, the form of your smartphone, and the synapses in your brain simultaneously.

The problem with everything seeming like a priority is that eventually nothing is a priority. All issues, large and small, compete on a stage the size of the planet, the form of your smartphone, and the synapses in your brain… Share on X
  • Overwhelm leads to increased anxiety — Think about the last time you were trying to juggle multiple problems at the same time. I bet you were trying to give your attention to so many interested parties that one last, small request (“Honey, where’s the Costco card?” “Mom, can you take me to the mall?”) made you feel like your limbs where going to fly off in different directions.
  • Use of social media leads to a variety of emotional dysfunctions. Over the last decade, social media use has grown; in 2022, the average person spent 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media per day. Why is that worrying? 
    • The more we connect online, the more we experience FOMO (fear of missing out).
    • We more see other people having fun (attending parties, going on vacation, celebrating life milestones), the more likely we are to feel lonely.
    • Comparing one’s own life to other’s highlight reels can lead to lower levels of self-esteem. If you judge your own self-worth by comparing yourself to others, social media may make you feel like you’re failing.
    • As people — particularly younger folks — spend less time developing in-person social interactions and more time on social media and dating apps, there’s an increase in social awkwardness when they finally do meet face-to-face. This contributes to more social anxiety. Additionally, the social relationships we do have tend to fray without positive, in-person interactions.
    • Social media makes it easier for people to exhibit bad behavior. Bullied teenagers used to have a respite from their cruel classmates once the school day was over; now, it follows them home on their phones and social gaming sites. And we all know about rude online treatment of anyone who dares to have a differing opinion on anything, whether politics, sports, or music, or has a different religious, national, ethnic, or other kind of identity.
    • More nuanced unkindness online occurs in the withholding of likes or social approval, which again, when we compare our “performance” and “appeal” to that of others, can make us feel like we’re lacking.
    • All of this can lead to depression.
  • We can lose the ability to ability to self-soothe when we’re constantly tethered to our digital pacifiers. On the plus side, our devices can distract us from very real things that, well, suck. But when we become dependent on that kind of distraction, our former life skills dissolve. We used to be able to make polite conversation with strangers in line or read books for extended periods of time. We could go to sleep without an hour of scrolling. Now, we’re often unable to tame our thoughts unless we allow the internet to do it.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO UNPLUG?

Every app and the whole on the internet is purposely designed to keep you coming back. 

There’s a scientific explanation. Every time we use our devices, it reinforces the pathways taken by dopamine, a happy-making neurotransmitter at the base of our reward-seeking behaviors. Just like the bells and blinking lights on a Vegas slot machine condition us to pull the lever or push the buttons one more time, the notifications, “Breaking News” headlines, daily streaks in apps, and aforementioned “likes” draw us back in.

Godfather Goodfellas GIF from Godfather GIFs

Worse, as with other addictions, when this neurotransmitter pathway doesn’t get reinforced, we actually experience something very similar to a chemical withdrawal. Have you ever found yourself without your phone, feeling jittery and unable to tame your mood?

It’s not your fault. You have to use modern devices for work, and you really do want to have access for many of life’s convenience. But you will feel better if you can lessen your dependence.

HOW TO UNPLUG FOR A DAY

To celebrate the Global Day of Unplugging, you can look for a community event near you. There’s everything from a musical chairs event in Charleston to Yoga and Sound Healing in Gainesville, from a Family Bonfire & S’Mores in Star, Idaho to something called a Disco Get Down-Dog in San Diego. And this truly is global, with events from Denmark to Bolivia, Virginia to Switzerland!

The Global Day of Unplugging organization has listed over 200 ideas of what you can do instead of being plugged in!

The idea isn’t to become a Luddite, but to find ways to feel less isolated or disconnected (whether from others or yourself). Ideas range from the tame (unclutter your pantry, take a hike, do some gardening) to those that indulge your inner child (build a living room fort, blow bubbles, put on a puppet show).

Create art (decorate a lantern, have fun with origami) or go on a quest (create a scavenger hunt or go on a Gnome hunt)! And while I’d be hopeless at crocheting for a cause or going on an ice-block slip & slide, all of these events would definitely be healthier for my brain, heart, and soul than scrolling through the curated slime-fest some platforms have become.

You can also support the global unplugging movement by making a donation or purchasing “merch,” but even joining at the free plan lets you download their “I/We Unplug” signs.

If you enjoy the Global Day of Unplugging, consider taking a tech sabbath as described by Tiffany Shlain in 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection or doing a digital detox on a more regular basis, so you and your devices take a real break from one another.

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TRY BABY STEPS TO GET MORE COMFORTABLE WITH UNPLUGGING

Nobody is saying that you have to become an in-person social diva overnight and join with others. If you’re more the “lone wolf” type, there are many ways to make it easier to unplug.

  • Make it less convenient to access your phone when you should be doing something else. At work, put it in a drawer; if you work from home, take it to another room. When out and about, put your phone in your purse or work bag, inside a zippered compartment. Add friction!
  • If you can’t keep your hands off your phone, use the accessibility functions to turn your phone to “grayscale.” When the display is limited to black, white, and grey, your brain gets fewer dopamine hits and you’ll be less compelled to reach for it.
  • Use positive reinforcement. Doodle a message (like “UNPLUG!” or “Put me down!”) to yourself and take a photo (or create a graphic in Canva) that reinforces your goal on your locks screen. 
  • Silence notifications when you need to do focused deep work (but set expectations so co-workers or family trust you’ll get back to them).
  • Don’t use your devices in the bedroom, at night or in the morning. Remember, the blue light from devices detracts from your ability to get recuperative sleep (meaning you’ll be distracted the next day), and using them first thing in the morning keeps you from starting your day focused and intentional. Don’t get sucked in to what’s trending.
  • Don’t text and drive. Don’t dictate and drive. Don’t let your phone read texts aloud. Unless you’re getting directions or there’s an emergency, put your phone away.

And if you’re worried about your family, remember: it’s hard to limit screen time for kids and teens when you don’t model healthy digital hygiene yourself. Work together to support alternatives to an always-online life.

Ironically, the more technology gains a pernicious hold on our attention, the more we may need to consider technological solutions to untether. 

For example, there’s an increase in apps to make it easier to not use apps! ClearSpace claims that 97% of its users reduced their screen time in the first week of use. It uses a minimalist design to block and limit distracting apps, reduce time spent doom scrolling, train attention through screen time challenges, and provide screen time accountability and reporting.

Similar apps for helping reduce screen use include Forest, Space, Off the Grid, and Elqi.

There’s even a new phone, the Minimal Phone, designed to make essential work easier but social media use less appealing.

The Minimal Phone uses an E-Ink display that’s supposed to reduce eye-strain and promote healthy sleep. The claim is that it’s “designed to discourage prolonged social media use, while still being perfect for essential tasks like emails and texts.” It’s higher tech than a flip phone, but less inviting than a typical smart phone.

UNPLUG TO ACHIEVE SILENCE

We tend to think of unplugging as it affects our eyes, but our ears get overstimulated, too.

The Sounds of Silence

Even 65 years ago, individuals were trying to unplug from the experience of audio overload, as The Restorative Pause of Silent Record Week and the below video both explain.

(Learn more about the phenomenon of “silent” records in Spin Magazine’s Silence is Golden and Music Weird’s The Sounds of Silence: A Brief History of Silent Recordings.) 

A study entitled Is silence golden? Effects of auditory stimuli and their absence on adult hippocampal neurogenesis, published in 2013 in the journal Brain Structure and Function found that, for mice at least, silence can be “a proactive catalyst for neurogenesis.” In other words, silence can stimulate the creation of new brain cells. Stepping away from the pings and buzzes might not just make you calmer, but smarter!

And it’s not just the one-way silence that might benefit us. Last year, researchers found a problematic aspect of video conferencing. When we chat in person, we respond to yes-or-no questions, on average, within 297 milliseconds; on Zoom, it’s 976 milliseconds! We may not perceive the delay, but the slowdown interferes with the neural mechanisms regulate human conversation? Our physiological response? (Zoom) fatigue. 

And one study found that two minutes of silence interspersed with, or after, relaxing music increased the calming power of music on cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory systems. Silence combats the negative aspects of our online life.

You may find these trends toward silence intriguing enough to consider other ways you might unplug.

Silent Reading Groups

Silent Book Club has over 500 chapters in 50 countries. There’s no assigned reading, and you can meet, eat and drink, and read silently for an hour along with others equally craving silence. (They do socialize after the reading time.)

Carving Silence from Chaos

Earth FM offers a search engine to find the quietest places in the word’s loudest cities. Unplug from your devices, then escape the high decibels of your city and enter peaceful gardens, parks, pools, and arboretums.

Los Angeles Ornamental Japanese Garden, photo by Glen Bowman (CC 2.0)

Silent Salons

In many beauty salons, you can request a silent appointment or silent chair. It might seem contradictory to the idea of unplugging from the digital realm to have more one-to-one interactions. But sometimes, a person is overwhelmed by all auditory experiences. It’s OK to unplug from conversation, too.

Silent Travel

Unplugging is hard. Most of us would feel accomplished enough if we could put our phones away for an entire day. Given that, I’m fascinated by a new trend of traveling unplugged.

Silent travel is designed to be restorative and mindful, so when you return, you don’t need a vacation to recover from your vacation. Options include:

  • Silent meditation retreats — Monks and nuns may be the best-known practitioners of silent meditation, but interest grows every year. A colleague has attended multiple silent retreats over the years, each scheduled in proximity to her birthday. The experience gives her the opportunity to focus on her thoughts and feelings, and do some self-analysis, things that would be very difficult amid the FOMO and constant contact inherent in carrying the internet around in her pocket.
  • Quiet and silent nature reserves — Nature is not silent (though I wish the tree frogs outside my suburban home would considering hushing themselves.) Animals are, however, unlikely to buzz or ping or otherwise carry on a loud one-side conversation with a fellow creature halfway across the country. Organizations like Quiet Parks International promote awareness of listening to nature and our inner voices, reduce the impact of noise pollution, and foster the benefits of experiences that allow for embracing silence and the sounds of nature.

For those of us who struggle with traditional meditation, especially the kinds that require sitting still, silent walking sans devices are an anxiety-busting revelation. Several organizations support such efforts by identifying locations and providing advice, including SilentWalks.org, Sharing Nature, and Ideas for Educating. 

  • Sleep tourism has become a whole thing in recent years, with the hospitality industry investing deeply in wellness options like specialized in-bed therapies, guided meditations, in-room essential oil infusers, and other treats. Sleep retreats offer options to modify sounds, aromas, temperatures, textures, surfaces, and experiences.

Bed in the Clouds Photo by Mo Eid

Escaping the negative effects of your phone is just the beginning; even the most middlebrow of hotel stays now include combination alarm clocks and sound machines so that your business trip dreams can be accompanied by the sounds of rushing water or birdsong.

If you’re a light sleeper, quiet hotels help unplug from other people’s conversations and devices. Quiet Hotels and QuietHotelRooms can help you find quiet spaces is noisy cities.

As you unplug from the digital world and sensory inputs, consider silent options.

READ MORE ABOUT UNPLUGGING

Attention and Mental Health (Center for Humane Technology)

Safe Technology North Carolina 

Unpluggo — Disconnect to Reconnect 

Why Unplugging Matters 

Blending Libraries: How To Organize Books with Your Sweetheart

Posted on: February 12th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 18 Comments

Did you know that in addition to February 14th being Valentine’s Day, it’s also International Book Giving Day and Library Lovers’ Day? As someone who’d much rather receive a bouquet of books than flowers, this makes sense to Paper Doll. And February 20th is Clean Out Your Bookcase Day!

The literary and the romantic will always be tied together. I mean, watching or hearing someone declare their love is nice, but being able to read (and reread) the declaration more than two hundred years later? Jane Austen knew what she was doing when she had Persuasion‘s Captain Wentworth’s write this to Anne Elliot. 

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant…

N/A

Reading can be romantic. But let’s face it, there’s nothing romantic about organizing books.

Or is there?

What could be more romantic than your sweetheart making sure you don’t fall and break your neck tripping over their pile of unread books? What could be a finer proof of your love than moving your books off of the kitchen counter so your darling can actually make lunch?

Other than commingling finances, what could require more love and trust than combining your personal libraries?

ORGANIZE YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY FIRST

Organizing, downsizing, and protecting your personal library (and your reading time) involves a great deal of thought and planning, as I’ve written before in various posts over 17 years, including:

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. For example, you could read what Martha Stewart and her favorite peeps have to say about How to Organize Books in a Way That Works for You. 

Conversely, you could review what the Washington Post says in How to Organize Your Books, According to People with Thousands of Them. 

And, of course, even though I’m a professional organizer, I’m a reader first, and I know that there’s much more to a personal library that just arranging books. To that end, I invite everyone to read Freya Howarth’s How to Nurture a Personal Library.

If your own book collection is sprawling, full of duplicates and titles you’ll never read again (or read at all), outdated college textbooks, or other book clutter (did you gasp at “book clutter”?), you can find ways to hide your biblio-addiction in your own, private space.

That works for hermits. However you choose to organize your own books, organizing books when you live with your significant other adds multiple layers of complexity.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BLENDING PERSONAL LIBRARIES

First, you have to decide whether you’re going to try to blend your books, or keep them separate. Then you have to embrace the difficult work of culling your collections. (If you came to blows trying to figure out whose air fryer or toaster oven you’d use, that was mere child’s play.)

When friends ask me if they should blend book collections with their sweethearts, I say, “Don’t. Books are intimate. Mixing your books is like mixing your toothbrushes. Blech!”

When clients ask me the same question, I am more sanguine, or at least more practical.

When friends ask me if they should blend book collections with their sweethearts, I say, 'Don't. Books are intimate. Mixing your books is like mixing your toothbrushes. Blech!' When clients ask me the same question, I am more… Share on X

Space Invaders — Introducing One Library to Another

We love our book collections. Our personal libraries say something about who we were, are, and hope to be. Exposing our private collections may be awkward or embarrassing, less like when your parents share “baby on the bearskin rug” photos and more like when they show photos of you, all braces-and-bad-perm, at the junior prom.

So, let’s imagine that you and your beloved have just decided to cohabit.

  • Are they moving into your space?

How will you keep from feeling like your terrain is being invaded? If you’ve previously shared an apartment with a friend or just a sub-letting housemate, it’s probably been very clear whose space belongs to whom. Perhaps the division was congenial and you easily divided everything equally; perhaps not.

Will you resent reducing the space available for your carefully curated collection?

It’s one thing to give up space in your closet, bathroom cabinet, or even your underwear drawer, but if you guard your bookshelves fiercely (as most avid readers do), how will you welcome your sweetheart and fellow reader into your space?

  • Are you moving into their space?

Any time two people move in together where one has already been residing, there’s an implicit turf war. How will you feel at home in a home without adequate and fairly representative space for your books, which you may love as much as someone else loves their Labradoodle! You don’t want to feel like an invader, but neither do you want to feel like a guest in what should become your new home.

Divide Without Conquering — How to Share a Space When Both of You Have Custody of Books

Maybe you’re moving together to a new home and get to start fresh. Or, it’s possible you’ve been living together for a while. Whether the two of your are married or otherwise, your home has the potential for a “yours, mine, and ours” problem in the book department.

Separate but Equal, or Joint Custody?

Even couples who enjoy a hot romance may prefer a cool detente when it comes to blending books. You might decide to keep your personal collections completely separate, or only blend books related to your mutual interests or things related to the family as a whole.

If you decide not to mix your collections, you’ll need to at least designate space for who gets which bookcases and shelves. But this leaves questions:

  • How do you achieve fairness?  

Do you opt for parity?

Your instinct may be to just start unboxing your books wherever you’ve identified as a good space for you, like how the first college student to arrive picks the bed and gets the nearest shelf. That’s fine in a dorm room, where each item has its mirror image, but whose apartment or house has truly equal (and equally appealing) space?

If you decide to choose parity, is the solution equal shelf space or equal number of books? What if one person has hundreds of thin volumes of cozy mysteries but another has far fewer titles but they’re all thick and leather-bound?

You may scoff, but I’ve seen married couples who otherwise seem sane and satisfied in their love come to verbal blows over one having more books taking over their joint space. Leaving aside that all but the mildest scuffles might be better suited to the marriage counseling couch than the organizing session, it’s better to anticipate the problem and talk out the solutions.

If you do blend your collections, either partially or in total (notwithstanding your bedside table To Be Read piles), you’re still going to have a lot to consider.

  • How do you deal with duplicates?

First, there’s the issue of when the two partners own the same book. In the name of organization, Sweetie may want to keep the pristine first edition of The Sun Also Rises, but Darling has a bent copy with every margin filled with the wisdom gleaned from a much-loved college literature course (when Darling went through a beret-and-Gauloises-smoking phase).

Typically, when professional organizers work with clients who have duplicate skirts or screwdrivers or spatulas, we focus on what’s in the best condition. However, weighing the value of something that is “the same but different,” like a book that has financial value vs. one that has sentimental or intellectual value, is more difficult.

Before shelving, Sweetie and Darling need to decide how they’ll move forward. Will they purge based on monetary value or let sentiment win?

As Emily Dickinson said, the heart wants what the heart wants. If one partner pushes to purge by discounting sentiment, what will the other partner’s heart want if forced to give up too much?

This doesn’t even take into account when one member of the couple has what the other considers an excessive number of duplicates all on their own. Maybe Sweetums has a copy their first sweetheart gave them, then a refined leatherette copy, and maybe even a 50th anniversary edition? Whether it’s Stephen King or F. Scott Fitzgerald, you’ll have to come to terms regarding how much one “gets” to keep.

  • What organizing system will you use?

Will you shelve randomly, just getting everything out of boxes and onto your bookshelves, figuring you can always organize them later — or perhaps one of you doesn’t care about organizing them at all? (Yes, that was Paper Doll you just heard go, “eek!”)

Will you be systematic, perhaps by author or title or genre? Is it enough for you to separate your fiction from your non-fiction? Or must fiction be chunked into historical eras and then by author, with non-fiction classified by Dewey and his (sexist, racist) decimal system or Library of Congress? 

What if you want to organize by genre and your Honeybunny painstakingly orders (and reorders) books in the order HB intends to read them? Readers have quirky preferences. In Anne Fadiman’s famous essay Marrying Libraries (linked below) she proposed to organize American authors alphabetically by last name, but put British authors chronologically, and then their works chronologically by their publishing date! 

How to organize books is hotly contested. A You.gov survey a few months ago asked more than 29,000 Americans how many books they owned and how they organized them. The results shows a variety of preferences; what’s the chance your Romeo or Juliet organizes books exactly as you do?

(I’d like to refrain from judgement, but — have you met me? I understand the 28% who don’t organize their books, but the 5% who don’t have books? Please, dear readers. Don’t fall in love with serial killers or people who don’t have books.)

  • What role should aesthetics play, particularly with books in public spaces (like the living room or den)?

Should crumbling (but well-loved) books go on the home’s fanciest library shelves? What if one person wants to organize by color, while the other is nauseated by anything too removed from the Dewey Decimal System?

If you share a library with someone who organizes books by whether the cover is red or purple, will you start re-thinking your commitment to the relationship?

What about rules for home library organizing? If you (like Paper Doll) are the type to bring all books up to the edge of the shelf, how will you share your library with someone who pushes books all the way back of the shelf so that the fronts aren’t smooth and picture frames and knickknacks get piled in front of them, or worse, overflow books get double-layered in front of the books in the back and … OMG, I’m hyperventilating!

  • What about the inherent public-facing messages related to content?

What if your partner is embarrassed by your middlebrow tastes? (Maybe they shouldn’t be such a snob about your collection!)

Perhaps you’re cringing at the political leanings reflected by your partner’s books? (You might start wondering if you shouldn’t be with someone whose politics give you “the ick.”) 

  • How will you organize the finances of growing your mutual libraries? 

This is part of a larger discussion in your household. If you’re “just” cohabiting, then you may each buy whatever books you want with your own money. But if you’re married, this is a whole other marriage counselor/financial advisor/professional organizer triple-threat conversation. Will you have “yours, mine, and ours” bank accounts and purchase books accordingly from those accounts?

What about digital purchases going forward? Having one unified Kindle account can be a mess, not only for organizing your digital libraries, but for dealing with ownership if the relationship sours. 

The Ugly Truth

The sad truth is that not all relationships last. The Gotye song Somebody I Used to Know is heartbreaking and universal, especially when he says,

No, you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number

Nobody wants to think about the end of a relationship — of pre-nups and post-nups and dividing community property. But other than personal photos (and the alluded-to music libraries), what could be harder to disentangle than a couple’s library of books?

  • How will you de-blend your book collections in case of a breakup or divorce?

In the mid-1990s, I lent my (now-former) boyfriend my copy of Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy. 

N/A

The end of the relationship stung. Time heals, but I still seethe over the loss of the book.  

Which is more misery-inducing? Haggling over whose signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird this is, or playing keep-away and refusing to take ownership of The DaVinci Code or Atlas Shrugged or Eat, Pray, Love?

If you do blend your libraries, perhaps take the precaution of putting your initials on the inside cover of your books. Maybe that little insurance policy that you won’t lose your books will give you the confidence to keep working together through the tough times?

BLENDING BOOKS: THE ONGOING DEBATE

This post was supposed to be about love, and now I’ve shared all the troubles I’ve seen in my professional (and personal) capacity. Maybe you’d like someone else’s take?

This 2018 piece from Minnesota’s Star Tribune, Bookmark: Should newlyweds combine their book collections?, offers a sweetly messy take.

The truth is, though, there’s no one right answer. Even the popular blog Book Riot can’t agree. In 2012, Book Riot published How to Say “I Do” to Shared Bookshelves Without Ruining Your Relationship; nine years later, it published, Don’t Merge Book Collections.

The thing is, they were both right.

The earlier, more optimistic post focused on the how-to advice: work together to create a new, joint organizing system; display your books so you and your partner can operate from a position of strength and wisdom; “Leave your Judgy McJudgerton pants in the closet” (which is quite possibly my favorite piece of organizing advice, ever); and compromise. The author, Book Riot’s Chief of Staff Rebecca Joines Schinsky, acknowledged that if things got hot (and not the good kind) over the discussions, you might just decide to blend everything except books.

But Schinsky ends with, “Like committing to a relationship, merging your bookshelves is an exercise in hope.” She eschews the idea of an exit strategy. 

A different Book Riot author, Associate Editor Danika Ellis, was less optimistic in 2021, giving four reasons not to blend books: personal libraries are a reflection of our unique, personal selves; our sorting systems are similarly personal; our systems should work for us; and, as I’ve already noted, relationships end. More cynical than her colleague, Ellis ends with:

Your books will outlive you, and they’ll certainly outlive your relationship, no matter how charmed. So make the right call: prioritize your books. You’ll thank me later.

ORGANIZE BOOKS (WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER) WITHOUT BLOODSHED

Romantic or cynic, you can’t keep the books in moving boxes piled up around you. (Well, as I’ve seen with many clients over the years, you can, but I don’t advise it.)

A few years ago I wrote Paper Doll’s Pop Culture Guide to Decluttering with Your Valentine. It reflected my definitive approach to organizing with the love of your life. Before you think about organizing your mutual libraries, read that. (But I’ll now always look at my comment, “Purge the judgement and toss the guilt,” and wish I’d written, “Judgy McJudgerton pants.”) 

Beyond that, communication is key. You may have a history of long, romantic discussions over favorite books, authors, and genres, but have you ever talked about organization? Go through the issues I raised above: about resentment over invasion or not feeling at home, about parity and systems, about aesthetics vs. function, about finances. And yes, about how to have an insurance policy so the books don’t suffer if the relationship doesn’t make it.

Compromise is hard. I advise creating a system that requires as little compromise as possible. The best relationships are the ones where you are able to maintain a sense of your personal identity as you grow a mutual identity in a couple. You will face enough compromises in other areas of your relationship; do what you can to keep your relationship from impinging on your reading comfort.

Pare down your individual book collections, and then start with them separate —  your shelves and their shelves. You can always create shelves with books for family-specific topics like travel, cookbooks, or household care, and if you grow your family, books for any tiny humans who come along.

That said, be open to reversible experimentation. Getting rid of out-of-print books is hard to reverse, while a new organizing system causing confusion is easily remedied.

Look for helpful alternatives. If you’re both willing to blend libraries but not willing to cull duplicates, consider putting them on a bookshelf in your guest bedroom. Your guests can easily find something to read on sleepless nights. 

Create a library inventory. There are so many apps and online options, like Libib, Goodreads, Library Thing, for documenting what books you own and where you’ve organized them. Just scan your books’ bar codes and the information will populate in a database. Most let you create a field for who brought it into the household (a high-tech version of penciling your initials inside the cover). It will also help you identify duplicates if your collections are large and sprawl across rooms or even floors of the house.

LOVING ESSAYS ABOUT BLENDING LIBRARIES

No Valentine’s Week post on the romantic blending of libraries would be complete without sharing two seminal essays on the topic:

Marrying Libraries by Anne Fadiman, excerpted from her excellent book, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. (My favorite essay in the collection is My Odd Shelf, but the whole book is a reader’s paradise.)

N/A

The Books by Alexander Chee for The Morning News with this: 

It’s hard to explain how moving it was to me to sit down with Dustin’s books on the night I combined our fiction. It took me completely by surprise. I had truly thought it was an ordinary exercise. But it never is with books, I know now.

I began by carefully lifting them off the shelf, dusting them and taking them into the living room.

In some way that wasn’t apparent to me before they sat on the side table, waiting to be sorted, I could see these were the books that had kept him company in those years before he knew me, the books that had helped him turn into him. This hadn’t quite been apparent to me before I took them down to move them.

but also this bit about duplicates, which sums up the whole discussion:

You don’t keep the doubles because you believe you may not stay together. You keep the doubles because the one you own, that’s your friend. The one he owns, that’s his. To only have one, it would be like sharing an email address.

Not everything can be shared. And that isn’t a crisis. It’s how it should be.

If you share your home with a sweetie-pie, how do you organize your mutual book collections?

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