Archive for ‘Productivity’ Category

Paper Doll’s Guide to Picking the Right Paper Planner

Posted on: December 19th, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 10 Comments

With two weeks until the new year, you’ve probably already started planning for 2023. But if you’re agitated about next year not being any more orderly than this one, you might be hesitating about committing to a planning system. Today’s post is designed to put you more at ease, and give you some guiding principles.

WHY USE A PAPER PLANNER?

There’s nothing wrong with using a digital calendar. I use one myself, though not for scheduling. I use my digital calendar so that when I get an email with Zoom logins, or have a telephone consultation with a prospective client, I don’t have to go looking for the emails to find the links or phone numbers.

In Outlook, I can create an appointment or task directly from an email, and the system will prompt me at a pre-set time with all the key details. It’s like having my own personal Jeeves pop his head into the room to let me know the countess and duchess have arrived to join me for tea.

But honestly, I never use my digital calendar to plan my life. I’m a Paper Doll, so it stands to reason, I prefer a paper planner. But how do you know what’s best for you?

Let’s start with the mindset, and the different advantages and disadvantages of paper planners vs. digital calendars.

Learning Curve

If you are over the age of eight, you already know how to use a paper planner. On the monthly view, there are boxes for the days of the month to put major events, deadlines, and vacations. On the weekly and/or daily views, you can time block for tasks and list appointments.

Digital calendars aren’t complicated, per se, but they are not always intuitive. There might be a generational schism at play, but I’ve had clients try once, twice, even three times to input an appointment, only to have some technical or user kerfuffle lead them astray.

Why does this matter? Digital fatigue creates friction, and friction prevents people from completing a task, whether it’s removing the lid to the laundry hamper to toss clothes in, or schedule an appointment when the system isn’t working.

Woman With Planner Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

Digital fatigue creates friction, and friction prevents people from completing a task, whether it's removing the lid to the laundry hamper to toss clothes in, or schedule an appointment when the system isn't working. Share on X

Control vs. Convenience

At first, the ease of clicking to accept a meeting invitation would seem like an advantage for digital calendars. But is it?

When I train clients to improve their productivity, we focus on identifying priorities so that we can protect boundaries around them. On a digital calendar in your phone, you generally see the month with blobby dots signifying appointments on particular days.

You have to click through to look at the individual date to schedule the meeting, but then you’re losing the surrounding context because you’re just seeing one appointed after another another in a list. Again, you can’t see time.

When we brainstorm ideas, schedule appointments, break projects into tasks and plan when we’ll do them, we’re thinking about context. When we see a whole month of appointments on the printed page, we instinctually know we have to give ourselves (and our brains) some recovery time. That’s less obvious when we only see the one time slot and the computer merely tells us if there’s a conflict. (Also, on the digital calendar, it’s less clear that you haven’t scheduled time for a potty break or commute.)

Many people — children, college students, people with ADHD, overwhelmed professionals —often suffer from a lack of ability to visualize the passage of time. An analog planner involves more tactile interaction with the appointments and tasks we schedule. As we deal with finding a reasonable time for each time, we gain mastery, not only over our schedules, but our comprehension of time.

Cost

Basic digital calendars are built-in to our phone and computer systems, and most apps are inexpensive. Conversely, paper planners may run you from $20-$50. But when it comes to our planning tools, cost does not necessarily equal value.

Yes, there’s a dollar value to the purchase price of an app vs. a paper planner. But there’s a time value related to mastering a new calendaring system. Are you prepared to commit yourself to learning the intricacies of a new app or the same app every time it updates?

Privacy vs. Searchability

This is another close call. Your paper planner is completely private, as long as you don’t leave it unattended; a digital planner generally syncs across all of your digital devices, which means that while it should be private, there’s never a 100% certainty that there are no prying, hacking eyes.

Conversely, your digital calendar is usually searchable. You can type a keyword or person’s name to find a scheduled appointment or task. Your planner can only be searched by trailing your gaze across each page, and the less careful you are with entering data, the more you risk losing the information when you need it.

Visual vs. Visual+Tactile

When you drive, do you think in terms of linear directions, or are you more inclined to recall what to do when you reach landmarks? If you prefer linearity, go digital; if you like touchpoints and landmarks, paper will likely resonate more.

Hand in Water Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Does digital time “feel” real to you? On a digital calendar, every item appears in the same font and size. You can often color-code items, but digital entries have a vague sameness about them.

If you write something down, you can stop thinking of it, per se, and start thinking more robustly and contextually about it. Somehow, dragging an email into Outlook to set a meeting, or typing an appointment into your phone, leads to an out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation for many. But with a tangible paper planner, every time you eyeball your month or your week, you are speedily, comfortingly reminded of the important aspects your life.

Similarly, your fine motor skills applied to the task tend to be the same; you could be typing a grocery list or the key points for an interview (then buried into the notes section of a calendar event). With a paper planner, your tendency to print some things and handwrite others, your ability to use a particular color pen, to draw arrows and circles and adjust the size to shout or whisper on the page, yields a unique temporal language that makes sense to you.

Will a weighty paper planner “feel” more real to you vs. that free app (among dozens) on your phone?

Only you know for sure. For me, it’s a paper planner, all the way. But not all paper planners are created equal.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN PICKING A PAPER PLANNER

Anxiety over making the wrong planner choice is common; it’s one of the reasons people give up one planner and buy another mid-year. You don’t want to plunk $30 or $45 on a pile of paper that will sit like a lump on your desk because you’re afraid to “mess up” a pretty planner. This keeps people from committing to their planners and being successful at scheduling events and tasks.

Some users want simplicity; others desire flexibility. Some clients want aesthetically pleasing planners to inspire them, while others seek a serious, “professional” look. There’s no one perfect planner for everyone, but there are clues in how you feel about potential features.

Page Design

  • Adequate space — to show appointments and key information, especially on the monthly view. If you’ve got loopy handwriting, will small monthly view boxes cramp your style?
  • Layout for monthly/weekly/daily views — Understand how you “see” time. Also, depending on your life and lifestyle, consider whether you need an academic or full-year calendar, or a planner with lots of extra space for weekend and night activities.
  • Creative fields — Modern planners may give you spaces for more than just appointments and tasks. Do you want bubbles or fields or pages for note-taking, brainstorming, mind-mapping, or gratitude journaling?
  • Practical fields for tracking metrics — On the flip side of those creative attributes, there are planners with spaces for habit tracking, budgets, meals/nutritional logging, goal-setting, and other countable, observable elements.
  • Bonus features — Are you drawn to daily motivational quotes, religious references, or cartoons? I never loved my Franklin Planner so much as the year I was able to get one with a New Yorker cartoon each day. I’ve enjoyed my colorfully-tabbed Emily Ley planner for the last few years, but miss daily quotes and bits of wisdom.

Planner Quote Photo by Bich Tran  

Planner Design

In addition to features on the page, you might care about the design specifics of the planner itself:

  • Size — Do you think you’d like an executive, classic, or condensed planner? The largest sized planner may not fit in your bag, or may take up too much real estate on your desk, but the tradeoff of picking the smallest option will be losing writing space.
  • Weight — Does a hefty paper planner give you a greater sense of gravitas so that you’ll take your schedule seriously? Or will the bulk make it inconvenient for you to carry around?
  • Binding — There are ring binders (usually with 7 rings), which let you choose how many pages you want to carry with you at any given time. (I like all the monthly pages, but prefer only last month, this month, and next month for weekly/daily pages.) Coil binding won’t let you remove or add pages, but tends to be more condensed. Both ring and coil binders assure your planner will stay open and lay flat; stitched binding may flop closed when the planner is new, and “perfect” binding (glued, like with a paperback book) can deteriorate with rough handling.
  • Cover Style — Do your want your planner to have a leather (or “vegan leather”) cover for a fashion statement? What about a zipper? Are you good with a plastic or stiff paper cover? Will a simple planner cover help you take your planning more seriously or bore you? (Or are you willing to upgrade a staid cover with artwork or washi tape?)

Also remember that your planner is mostly about knowing what you have to do and when. If you need help with project management at the more granular level, take a peek at last year’s Checklists, Gantt Charts, and Kanban Boards – Organize Your Tasks.

PLANNER FORMATS: FOR WHOM ARE THEY REALLY DESIGNED?

As I research planners each year, I find that most planners fall into one of a few general categories: 

Basic Planners

Think back to before the computer era, when you’d go to the dentist. Before leaving your appointment, the receptionist would consult a big, black-covered planner with neat columns, flip forward in the book, and write your name for a particular date (column) and time (row). That’s the what you’ll get when you seek various office supply store-branded calendars: columns and rows and not much else.

Basic planners offer a variety of the planner design elements above, but relatively few extra page design options. Popular examples:

At-A-Glance — is the most like that dental office planner in the days of yore. It’s efficient and practical. If you’re easily distracted by colorful design elements, this style should keep you on the straight and narrow.

Franklin-Covey planners in the ring format are customizable. You not only get to pick your planner size, but also choose from a variety of themes. There are spaces for appointments, tasks, and notes on the same page; others have little boxes for tracking expenses. You can also purchase pages for contacts, more notes, budgeting, and a number of other extras.

Levenger Circa SmartPlanners come in junior and letter sizes and some DIY customization. They use ring-like discs, such as we discussed in Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 4): Modular, Customizable, Disc-Based Notebooks.

Moleskine planners comes in a wide variety of sizes, colors, bindings and styles for monthly, weekly, daily, and combination views. Much like Moleskine notebooks, these are well made, with curved corners and elastic closures. These are often suited to creative souls who still want to stick to a simpler style and format.

Planner Pads are the planners I recommend the most often to the widest variety of clients. There are monthly calendar pages, but the heart of the system is the weekly pages divided into three sections (projects/tasks, daily scheduled tasks, and daily appointments), which “funnel” the overall projects and tasks to where they belong each day. However, cover choice is limited to black and a sort of seafoam green. I’ve said it for years, but Planner Pads is missing a great marketing opportunity; they already have the best basic planners — why not make them a little more attractive?

Passion Planners are still pretty straightforward, with columns for each date and sections for work and personal tasks and for notes, but they add weekly sidebars for focus areas and a place to jot down the “good things that happened” that week. The covers are faux leather and come in a variety of sumptuous colors; choose cover design, pick one of three sizes, and decide whether you want your week to start on Sunday or Monday. 

Basic planners are the best for time blocking. (For more on this, see my Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity from last year.) They tend to be promoted as gender-neutral options, with rare prompts for life goals or touchy-feely stuff.

“Fancy” Planners

For want of a better term, these are a step up from the basics. It’s worth noting that fancy planners marketed to women tend to focus on aesthetics and tracking emotional/psychological factors; planners marketed to men tend to include more tracking of quantifiable action-based metrics.

There are a handful of smaller sub-categories I’ve noticed in this realm.

The Animal Planners

Panda Planner  — In addition to scheduling tasks and appointments, it covers inspiration and goals in sections labeled “Today’s Priorities,” “Morning Review,” and “Things I Will Do to Make This Week Great.”

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There are also sections for weekly reviews and weekly planning and focus on a daily habit. You can get three-month or yearly versions in a few different sizes, and there’s a cute panda embossed on the faux leather cover. 

Clever Fox aims for the person shopping for a planner by personal aesthetic. Planners come in a rainbow of colors and have spaces for scheduling, identifying goals (broken down by health, career, family, finances, personal development, etc.), listing priorities, and tasks/to-dos. There are lots of “feelings” pages for gratitude, daily affirmations and creating vision boards. And, there’s something that appeals to everyone who fondly remembers seventh grade, stickers!

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Simple Elephant Planner is similar in style and approach to Clever Fox, though in fewer colors. It comes with a mind map and vision board pages, but is undated. It’s my belief that undated planners lead users to avoid to fully committing to their planners, leading to system breakdown. Your milage may vary.

Life Coach/Celebrity Planners

Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map Planner is full of “truth bombs, sacred pauses, gratitude, body & wellness, and “core desired feelings.” If you are a fan of life coach LaPorte and these words delight, you may be inspired by the year-at-a-glance, monthly calendars with goal prompts, vision board, goal mapping sheet with monthly action plan pages, and journaling pages for “notes and insights.”

Michael Hyatt’s Focus Planner leans more toward the tone of “basic” planners with some of the attributes of “fancy” ones. The top of each page helps you track whether you’ve done your morning/evening/workday startup/workday shutdown rituals. Larger sections focus on “Big 3” goals for the day, schedule, and a task/note column reminiscent of a bullet journal with a key to tracking how to mark each item to track what you’ve done, delegated, and deferred, as well as important aspects, questions, and items awaiting replies. You can get the planners with linen or leather covers in solid, mostly dark neutral colors, in pocket or portfolio sizes. Although the content is gender-neutral, it has a very masculine tone.
 
Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Planner is a combination planner and journal Burchard developed based on the study of how high performers plan. The planner’s features include mindset journaling prompts, daily goal boxes, evening scorecards based on the day’s results, weekly habit assessments, monthly project planning, and what he calls “whole life balance sheets.” It comes in six cheery colors, but is another with a very professional, serious feel. Unsurprisingly, there are no fun stickers. 


The fancy planners, whether animal based (seriously, what is it with the animals?) or celebrity coach-driven, are better suited for those seeking to capture their entire lives in one place. That’s orderly, but it’s a lot of pressure to “get it right” and fill in lots of blanks.

Do you want your planner to feel like homework?

DO IT YOURSELF PLANNERS

DIY planners offer the best (or worst) of both worlds because you can make it whatever you want. The problem? The structure, as well as the execution, depends on you.

Bullet Journals still confuse me and cause anxiety. They have their fans and their detractors. All I can say is that no matter how many times I’m told I don’t have to make one look artistic or cool, any attempt on my part feels both too unstructured and too “uncool.”

James Clear’s Clear Habit Journal via Baron Fig is a combination daily journal, dot grid notebook, and habit tracker, but it’s not really a planner. Use it in conjunction with what you learn reading Atomic Habits, but I encourage you to embrace a planner that gives more structure to know when you do should things and not only track what you’ve already done.

Agendio deserves a blog post all its own. Basically, though, you use a digital platform for customizing the exact paper planner you need, controlling for everything from section categories to line spacing! 

DIY planners may be best for the most advanced planner, not for the most creative one. While they may seem ideal for the Sally Albright (“I’ll have it on the side”) character in When Harry Met Sally, too many planning options can cause overwhelm, leading to avoidance and guilt.

Specialty Planners

Again, this could be an entire blog post for each of the fields and personalities that need unique planning options. What I will tell you is that if you are (or have) a student, I’ve seen nothing better than my colleague Leslie Josel’s Academic Planner, about which I’ve written many times.

WHAT ABOUT A HYBRID PLANNING SYSTEM?

As I mentioned in the beginning, I use a paper planner, but I also have a digital calendar. Yes, I’m using my Outlook calendar to keep me aware of the passage of time (with alerts) and prompt me when it’s time to make a transition between tasks.

The main problem with having a hybrid system is that you may get in the habit of putting information in one place and not both, creating a conflict. If you want to use a hybrid system, incorporate a weekly, if not daily, check-in to review both schedules and catch any conflicts.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE A PAPER PLANNER WORK FOR YOU?

Planners won’t make you do the work any more than buying exercise videos or cute new outfits will make you work out. But having a paper planner assures you that there’s a “home” for your activities and makes time feel more tangible.

Improve your planner use by time blocking, scheduling “executive time” each day to review your schedule for the next day — set an alarm until it becomes a habit — and having an accountability partner provide support.

In the end, the best system is the one in which you can feel confident, because the key to the success of any system is commitment, and nobody fully commits to a system in which they have shaky confidence.

Are you digital, paper, or hybrid planner? What planning system will you use in 2023?

Organize Your Writing Time for NaNoWriMo 2022

Posted on: October 31st, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 8 Comments

Have you ever imagined writing the Great American Novel?

Does the idea of getting revenge after the end of a turbulent relationship by (barely) disguising your ex as the villain (or victim) in a mystery appeal to you?

Maybe you’ve figured out exactly what Billy Joel was talking about when he sang that “Paul is a real estate novelist” and you’d like to be one too?

(If not, don’t skip out. There are treats here for anyone who wants to organize their time to achieve a goal.)

NaNoWriMo gives you the opportunity to follow your dream.

WHAT THE HECK IS NANOWRIMO?

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, and then all throughout the month of November, you may see #NaNoWriMo pop up in your social media feeds. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. 

If you’ve ever done a month-long challenge (plank or do yoga every day of January, keep a journal for mindfulness, give up Facebook for a month, etc.), you’ll be familiar with this kind of effort. Except, at the end, instead of a fit core, increased self-awareness, or the calm of not knowing that people with whom you went to high school are bringing about the downfall of civilization, you’ll have written a book!

Each year, NaNoWriMo participants commit to writing a 50,000-word novel between November 1st and 30th of the month. That amounts to an average of 1667 words per day, but it’s only the final count that matters. (Because nobody actually writes on Thanksgiving Day. Too many carbs.)

Sign up on the website, maybe join some supportive forums, and then start writing. You can log your daily count and even get cute little badges for your progress.

Officially, there are opportunities to prep your novel during September and October, and get guidance for developing a story idea, creating complex characters, constructing a detailed plot outline (because outlines, like maps, get you where you want to go), and building your story’s world. 

All of these tasks are popular with plotters (people who create detailed outlines and prepare for the NaNoWriMo experience). Of course, there are also pantsers, authors who prefer to write by the seats of their pants and plan very little.

On a related note, there are also rebelsm with or without a cause. Although it’s designed as National Novel Writing Month, nobody is going to kick you out of the clubhouse for writing your dissertation, a graphic novel, your memoir, or whatever else you feel called to write. You may have noticed that I write really long blog posts — some topping 3000 words! One year, I used November to write most of a dozen blog posts and several articles.

It’s not cheating, it’s rebelling. (Doesn’t that sound a lot cooler? You can just imagine the leather jacket and the motorcycle.)

At any point, you can upload your novel to the NaNoWriMo website and it will verify your word count. When — let’s be confident! “if” is so iffy! — you hit that 50,000 word count, you can say that you’ve “won” NaNoWriMo for the year.

Winners get a certificate and a banner for display on social media accounts or any other web real estate, and you can purchase a T-shirt and other merchandise in the site’s store. Whether you actually publish or not — even if you never show your novel to anyone else — you’ll still know that you took on a challenge (one that didn’t involve surviving a global plague or not strangling any relatives at the Thanksgiving table) and triumphed.

GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR NANOWRIMO FRIENDS

Paper Doll readers know that I am all about mutual support, collaboration, and accountability, and so is NaNoWriMo. Throughout November (and actually, all year), you can avail yourself of a variety of writing assistance and support:

  • Discussion Forums — for covering everything from navigating genres to developing storylines to filling plot holes and punching up dialogue
  • Writing Groups — for writers seeking camaraderie with people of specific geographical regions, writing styles, or needs. There’s a group for writers with ADHD, authors who write fanfiction, and one called “Rom-Com Writers with Procrastination.”
  • Regional Support — from as wide a swath as the whole of Africa to as narrow as a neighborhood near you, you can find people to share your journey
  • Writing Buddies — NaNoWriMo makes it easy to find writing partners with whom you can trade ideas (or tales of woe)

As a Paper Doll reader, you already know the importance of accountability, but these two posts may also suit you well on your NaNoWriMo path.

NaNoWriMo are offers both new and archived Pep Talks from professional writers. I mean, if Outlander author Diana Gabaldon, Alex Cross mystery creator James Patterson, young adult novelist John Green, and MacArthur Genius-winning sci-fi writer N.K. Jemison can’t inspire you to write, who can?

If you need more motivation, NaNoWriMo sponsors offer some amazing prizes for both participants and “winners” who meet the 50,000 word goal. These include discounts for writing software (including Scrivener, Pro Writing Aid, NovelPad, and Plottr), digital devices, and writing/publishing support, and more.

So, you’ve decided you’re going to do this. You register, you post a banner and share your goal on social media, and now you’re watching the clock tick down to November. Now what?

ORGANIZE YOUR WRITING TIME

Last week, I was approached by someone who wanted advice on carving out time to write while still working a full-time job. I was honest; there’s no way to have more than 24 hours in the day, and contrary to what gets thrown around on social media, we do not all have the same 24 hours.

If you’ve got a full-time job (or multiple part-time ones), are raising kids, have a chronic illness, are caring for one more senior parents, or some combination of any of the above, you’re going to have less disposable time (like a temporal disposable income) than a single, healthy twenty-something. Time is not going to freeze and make time for you to write. So, consider stacking a few of these options to achieve your writing goals.

Accept that you have to dedicate specific chunks of time to writing.

You may be a pantser, but that’s about figuring out what you’re going to write. There’s no way to achieve any writing goal, whether writing a novel or finishing a term paper, without deciding when you’re going to write.

If you’re the kind of person who has to feel motivation to do something, I’ve got news for you:

Action precedes motivation.

You have to do something before you’re ready. Your 50K-word novel doesn’t have to be perfect; it doesn’t have to be polished. It doesn’t even have to be good. Your November writing project can be a hot mess!

But here’s my favorite truth about writing. You can’t edit a blank page.

Your 50K word novel doesn't have to be perfect; it doesn't have to be polished. It doesn't even have to be good. Your writing project can be a hot mess! But here's my favorite truth about writing. You can't edit a blank page. Share on X

So feel free to write whenever you feel inspired. Nobody’s going to stop you from grabbing your notepad or keyboard or a quill pen (except, maybe the bird from which the feather was plucked). But schedule time to ensure that you have dependable time to write.

The same is true of organizing or anything else you do. Nobody will arrest you for jumping up during a commercial break in Grey’s Anatomy to load the dishwasher. But if you consider dinner tasks to include meal planning, cooking, clearing the table, and loading the dishwasher, and that “dinner isn’t finished until the dishes are done,” then you won’t ever have to dread walking into the kitchen. 

Know what you’re going to write.

Even if you’re pantser and don’t know (or want to know) what you’re going to be writing on November 17th, let the back of your brain ruminate while you’re doing mindless tasks like bushing your teeth to get a sense of what you’ll be working on in your next writing session.

If you don’t know what you’re going to write, you will avoid sitting down to write. If you procrastinate and avoiding writing…you will not have written! Sad but true.

And if you do manage to sit down to write with no idea what you’re going to write about, you’ll get distracted. You do not want to get distracted, or you’ll end up with something like this:

 

If you can’t stand the idea of knowing what you’re going to write ahead of time because you feel like that would mess with the mojo of your creative muse, there’s an alternative to an outline.

Grab a stack of index cards and write down key words or concepts: character’s names, key plot elements, essential conversational high points. Then stuff the carnds in a jar or a hat, and when you sit down to write, grab a card to use as a writing prompt. Yes, you’ll be writing out of order and will have a harder job later on, cutting and pasting, but you’ll be writing!

Block your time…and put some blocks on ice.

Start with my post Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity to re-familiarize yourself again time blocking. 

Look at your schedule (and if you don’t have one, pull out a paper or digital calendar and hour-by-hour, day-by-day) and write down everything that’s already an obligation. That may be work, school, childcare, other-care, scheduled self-care and personal growth (like yoga or practicing a language or instrument).

 

Then write down all the things you do that aren’t ever scheduled, but which you have to do, from sleeping to grooming to housework and grocery shopping.

Identify blank spaces — if you have any. Those are your first options for writing time. If you’ve got blank space, you might be able to use it to write. (I say “might” because nobody can have all their waking time occupied. We need time to veg out, as I discussed in Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset. We can’t create without downtime.)

What if you don’t have any blank spaces? Consider whether you can remove some responsibilities for the duration of November. It’s about priorities. (This is true no matter what life goals you are trying to reach.)

  • Can you do one big grocery shop for the month and delegate the urgent milk-and-bread runs to another member of the household? (Or delegate all November grocery shopping and housework to someone whom you support in all of their goal achievement practices?)
  • Hire a babysitter for a handful of hours each week?
  • Are you willing to get up 45 minutes earlier, or stay up an hour later to get some writing time?
  • Can you cut out scrolling through TikTok of your November (or limit it to when you’re standing in line at the store or hanging out anyplace where that you couldn’t otherwise sit down and write)?
  • And, as a former broadcasting professional, I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but could you cut an hour of TV viewing out of your life?

When it comes down to it, there some things you have to do in November: eat, sleep, hydrate, groom, work for pay, take care of dependent humans, and vote. (Please, please remember to vote!) But for 30 days, can you vacuum less? Binge fewer shows?)

What if you have blank spaces, but they’re short or weird? It’s possible you have lots of writing opportunities, but none are expansive chunks of ninety minutes or two hours. That’s OK. If you have a good outline (that’s where being a plotter has the advantage over being a pantser), you don’t need long blocks of time. 

If you have 15 minutes between when you get home from work and everyone else gets home, focus on just one small part of your outline. Are you stuck on the dialogue for a scene for a pivotal conversation between two characters? Play-act the conversation while you’re in the shower or while driving; it’ll help you get the language and tone right; when you’re getting close to how it should sound (and are out of the shower), use the voice memo on your phone or dictate it into a text to yourself to capture the wording. You can transcribe or copy it into your manuscript later.

Rejoice in exploring short writing blocks. It’s less time to dither or second-guess your writing. Focus on getting words on paper. Consider having 25 minutes (one whole glorious pomodoro) the perfect amount of time to work on two or three great paragraphs.

Can you get up 15 minutes earlier and skip 10 minutes of Twitter scrolling to get those 25 minutes? There’s one writing block.

Can you bring your lunch to work so that you use half your lunch hour for eating and relaxing and the other half for writing?

Can you convince your significant other to take over an evening task like laundry, just for November, to give you 25 minutes every evening?

Boom! There’s your writing time!

Let NaNoWriMo figure out your best writing schedule.

NaNoWriMo has a cute social media-style quiz for figuring out the best schedule for your personality and lifestyle. It’ll only take about thirty seconds, and may yield some insight.

Guard your writing time.

Several ago, I wrote R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The Organizing Secret for Working At Home, and many of the concepts apply to helping others in your space respect your time and boundaries. But there are also tips for respecting your own time, staying focused and on-task, and not letting other’s non-emegencies squeeze your time. 

Consider what motivates you.

Obviously, you shouldn’t do NaNoWriMo if it doesn’t appeal to you. But before the month even gets started, make a list of all the reasons why you want to do it.

Whether it’s to get back at your 11th-grade English teacher who was dismissive of your creative efforts or to give you confidence that you can step out of your comfort zone, come up with ten big and small reasons you are inspired to write a 50,000 word draft of a novel.

Then write ten more reasons. And ten more after that!

Read one of those reasons aloud at the start of every day in November. Give yourself a fighting chance to overcome inertia and achieve your goal!

 

Track Your Progress

Every time I write about NaNoWriMo, I like to share David Seah’s Word Counting Calendar. Print out the black-and-white or color versions. Every day that you write, just log your total word count and then color in the appropriate boxes.

Post the calendar near your writing space to keep you motivated as you progress toward your goal.

EMBRACE THESE RESOURCES

You could write a book (or several) about all the resources available for supporting a writing project. Here are just a few classics and new-for-2022 to help you organize your thoughts, your research, your writing, and your November.

10 Steps to Get Started with Scrivener for NaNoWriMo — Updated for 2022, this list from the ultimate writer’s tool walks you through how to make the software serve your NaNo needs.

Your Essential Guide to Completing NaNoWriMo in Evernote — As an Evernote Expert, I’m constantly finding (and sharing) new ways to use Evernote to support work and personal goals. Anthony Bartlett has gathered some great advice, including linking to essential Evernote templates for creating character profiles, plotting your novel, story premises, and 3-act structures.

12 Creative Writing Templates for Planning Your Novel — Speaking of templates, Forrest Dylan Bryant walks you through a dozen templates, from those listed above to writing trackers to plot and character templates. Don’t reinvent the wheel when you can use Evernote templates to support your writing and story development. 

A Novel Strategy: How to Organize Big Writing Projects — Speaking of Forrest, about five years ago, he wrote this nifty post about how to use Evernote to organize your notes for writing a novel.

(P.S. Combining all of the info above, if you’re thinking of using Scrivener, know that you can import your Evernote notes into Scrivener and see your notes and writing area side-by-side. Cool beans!)

What is NaNoWriMo? And How to Win in 2022 — Updated every year, this masterful post from Reedsy has dozens of tips for managing your time, developing your writing ear, and keeping up your motivation.

Write a 50,000-Word Pulp Novel Before Breakfast: My easy no-outline way of writing short novels in four weeks by Amethyst Qu

How to Survive NaNoWriMo in 2022: 17 Top Tips for Success — Self-Publishing School offers a list of winning habits to help make the most of your November.

Although I don’t write about NaNoWriMo every year, there are several posts in the vault, including those from 2017, where I created NaNoWriMoMo and wrote advice for organizing yourself for NaNoWriMo every single Monday of that November. Just type “NaNoWriMo” into the search sidebar on the left of this site to find them.

Whatever you choose to do with the coming month, I hope you take time to plan and organize to help your dreams come true.

Paper Doll Responds When They Say “Be Our Guest”

Posted on: October 17th, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

The theme of this week’s post has become somewhat bittersweet since the I originally conceived it. On Tuesday, October 11, 2022, Dame Angela Lansbury passed away at the age of 96. Depending on your age and tastes, you may know Lansbury from various points in her eighty-year career.

If you’re a cinephile, you may know her from films from her earliest role in Gaslight and in the 1940s to The Manchurian Candidate in the 1960s and Bedknobs and Broomsticks in the 1970s, to Anastasia, Mary Poppins Returns and the Knives Out sequel, which hasn’t even been released yet!

If you’re a fan of Broadway, you could have caught her in anything from Stephen Sondheim’s early Anyone Can Whistle to the title role in Auntie Mame to the distasteful pie-baking Mrs. Lovett  in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And, if you watched television in the 1980s, 1990s, or 2000s, then you probably knew her best as Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote.

However, if you’ve been a kid or a parent or a baby sitter any time since 1991, then you will recall Lansbury voicing Mrs. Potts (alongside Jerry Orbach’s Lumière) in the classic animated Disney production of Beauty and the Beast. And if you’re wondering what any of this has to do with organizing, here’s a hint:

Perhaps this post’s theme might seem less shoehorned in (if less palatable) if I could sing it to you. But recently, I was asked to serve as a guest and offer advice and information on three disparate topics: productivity, technology, and paper, and I’d like the opportunity to share this material with you.

THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS EDGE MAGAZINE

On October 20, 2002, almost twenty years ago, in Professional Organizers Are A Growing Trend, I was profiled in the Chattanooga Times Free Press for the first time. Over the years, I’ve been delighted to be interviewed, right up through March 2021, when I was profiled in the newspaper’s Edge, a business-themed magazine.

However, I was particularly giddy when Jennifer McNally, the new editor of Edge asked me to write the October Business Acumen column in an issue devoted to staying productive. While the issue is geared toward professionals and business owners in the Chattanooga region, I think you’ll find it informative and appealing, no matter where you reside or what you do.

You can read the entire October issue of the Edge — my column spans pages 24 and 25, but other columns range from How to Own Failure (and Still Preserve Your Reputation) to the Take It From the Top series with advice from Chattanooga leaders on issues ranging from tracking goals, focus, and discipline to allocating time strategically and anticipating challenges.


You can also head directly to my guest Business Acumen column, An Expert’s Secrets to Stress-Free Productivity on the newspaper’s site. To give you a taste, it starts with:

Do you feel like life is more demanding than ever, and that effective productivity is hard to achieve? Workdays (and too often, nights) are packed with back-to-back meetings and Zoom calls, Slack notifications and email alerts. Productivity can be elusive.

Maybe you feel like you’re doing more but accomplishing less that rewards you. Increasingly, we’re seeing toxic productivity, where pressure to meet unrealistic expectations zaps physical and mental energy, damaging motivation and self-esteem. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In the column, I share my strategies for conquering overwhelm by identifying your priorities, protecting your focus, creating flow, and conquering procrastination. I encourage you to take a peek and let me know what you think.

THE STREAMLINED CONNECTION 

A particularly charming guest experience was getting to be on my friend and colleague Miriam Ortiz Y Pino‘s video podcast, The Streamlined Connection.

Miriam is a Certified Professional Organizer and Money Breakthrough Business Coach. Her company is More Than Organized, and she’s a firecracker! Like me, she’s been at this for more than two decades, and Miriam’s got an amazing way of creating transformation.

Miriam offers one-on-one in-person and virtual services including organizing, business coaching, speaking, and training in a variety of areas (including the fascinating topic of Sacred Money Archetypes). Miriam also delivers Streamlined Solutions courses for tackling clutter, time troubles, and paper, and live and virtual group workshops for professionals. 

It’s an absolute trip to talk to Miriam, because every conversation yields insight. So, I was tickled to be the first guest on her show. 

As a Paper Doll reader, you will not be surprised that, when given the opportunity to talk about organizing, I chose my favorite topic, paper. However, unlike when I talked about the philosophical aspects of Why Paper Still Matters on the NAPO podcast earlier this summer, Miriam and I went in a different direction.

On Organizing Paper with Julie Bestry: Paper FEAR and Tickles, we explored the nitty gritty of the frustrations of different types of paper clutter, and how strategically considering both fear and tickles can help you dig out from under. 

Miriam has since had some organizing and productivity industry rock stars as guests, including Amy Payne, Regina Lark, Geralin Thomas, Mike Vardy, Leslie Josel, Robyn Reynolds, and Nietra Rose! (Seriously, check it out!)

ORGANIZED ASSISTANT

The amazing (and Canadian) Janet Barclay has graced Paper Doll‘s pages many times over the years. I’ve known Janet since the days before modern social media, when we were both getting the hang of things on Ryze.com. (Don’t go visit; it’s all spam now. Sigh.)

Although Janet started out as a professional organizer and productivity consultant, she eventually found and perfected her niche in supporting organizing professionals. She works her magic as a “website caregiver and designer,” which means she helps people keep their online identities afloat so we can focus on our own clients. She rocks that way.  

But Janet rocks another way, as one of the biggest cheerleaders of the organizing and productivity profession. Her Organized Assistant web site is home to blog posts and articles that provide a broad perspective for those of us who work in the field, but she also created the Productivity and Organizing Blog Carnival for the reading public, collecting monthly themed posts on categories ranging from organizing junk drawers to efficiency in the workplace to organizing when a member of the family is ill.

I’m proud to say that I’m one of Janet’s Megastar Blogggers, having contributed to more than 50 monthly carnivals, and am joined by my fancy-pants colleagues Hazel Thornton, Linda Samuels, Sabrina Quairoli, and Seana Turner. 

Productivity & Organizing Blog CarnivalIn the spring, I referenced having recertified as an Evernote Certified Expert. As I often talk about the reasons I love and use Evernote, Janet asked if I’d like to share the certification process with her readers, and I was only too excited to do so. 

As an Evernote user, it was easy to pull together my resources for the guest post. I had notes from my original certification as an Evernote Certified Business Consultant in 2015, then as an Evernote Certified Consultant a few years later, and now under the current program, an Evernote Certified Expert. Evernote’s so-powerful-it’s-spooky search capacity found everything I needed to write Adventures in Becoming an Evernote Certified Expert. (This also means I had no excuse for procrastinating on actually writing it!)

Hopefully, you’ll be entertained as you learn about my experience getting certified, and it may encourage you to get certified, use the skills and support of an Evernote Certified Expert, or just learn more about Evernote in its newest incarnation as so much more than just a note-taking app.

Writing this, I’m shocked to realize it’s been nine years since I’ve written an entire post about Evernote. It’s a completely different platform now, with so many more features and opportunities to organize your digital life. So, don’t be surprised to see more Paper Doll posts in the future regarding how you can use Evernote to be more organized and productive.

BE YOUR GUEST?

As much as I love working with my in-person and virtual clients, giving presentations, and writing this blog, it’s even more fun when I get to share a (digital) stage or blog space. As I’ve reported, throughout 2022 I’ve been on a variety of podcasts and have guested at various summits, about which you can read more:

Paper Doll on the NAPO Stand Out Podcast: Why Paper Still Matters 

Paper Doll Picks: Organizing and Productivity Podcasts

Paper Doll on Planning & Prioritizing for Leadership

Paper Doll Shares Secrets from the Task Management & Time Blocking Summit 2022

Not enough Paper Doll for you? You can also check out my Press Room page for more links to interviews and guest spots.

If you have a podcast, summit, or blog for which you might like to interview me on topics related to paper and information organizing or productivity, please feel free to use the Contact page on my site to let me know how we might work together.

ONE LAST LOOK AT MRS. POTTS & LUMIÈRE

Paper Doll cannot live by organizing alone, and I hope that as my guests, you take some delight in the pop culture cameos that have populated this blog since 2007.

Whether solving crimes as Jessica Fletcher or making the worst pies in London as Mrs. Lovett, or getting nominated for Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Golden Globes, or Emmy or Grammy Awards, Angela Lansbury was beloved. And as Lumière to her Mrs. Potts, Jerry Orbach (Law & Order‘s Lennie Briscoe, Baby’s father in Dirty Dancing, and in oodles of other roles on stage and screen) was no slouch, either. With that, I’d like to close today’s post with this behind-the-scenes view of how they put together “Be Our Guest.”

Thank you for being my guest at the Paper Doll blog, and thank you for letting me be a guest on your computer and mobile devices all these years.

Paper Doll Helps You Get By With a Little Help From Her (Brilliant) Friends

Posted on: October 3rd, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

I love sharing my expertise and research with you about a wide variety of topics, from getting more (of the right things) done to conquering toxic productivity to accessing and organizing vital documents.

Although I’m a generalist in my professional organizing practice, I specialize in blogging about organizing paper and information and boosting productivity. But that doesn’t mean that’s all you want to hear about. After all, man (and woman) cannot live by bread alone. We also need cheese. (In Paper Doll‘s case, lots and lots of cheese.)

As a Certified Professional Organizer®, member of NAPO, and Evernote Certified Expert, I get to hobnob with other likeminded specialists, learn from them, and share their knowledge with you. Today, I’ve got a cornucopia of resources for making your life, family, and world run a little more smoothly.

LATE, LOST & LAGGING: UNDERSTANDING ADHD & EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

October is ADHD Awareness Month.

As recently as a few decades ago, people lacked a clear understanding of ADHD. If they thought about it at all, they considered it as something that only impacted little boys, that it was about being rambunctious and intentionally (or rebelliously) inattentive, and that it was something people grew out of. It was rarely acknowledged as something that impacted women and girls, and most people, if they considered it at all, thought it was something kids grew out of.

Now, we know more. We know that ADHD is a brain-based disorder, a neurological condition that affects people across all ages, genders, and socio-economic and cultural areas. (It’s diagnosed two-to-three times more often in boys than girls, but that may be because the expression of ADHD in girls can be less disruptive, which says more about socialization norms and pressures than it does about ADHD.)

ADHD impacts the lives people across all levels of education and intelligence. Willful ignorance about ADHD expresses itself in all levels of education and intelligence, as well.

I once worked with a client for whom her late-in-life diagnosed ADHD had caused distress throughout her life, and the emotional abuse inflicted on her by her physician spouse, who refused to “believe” in ADHD, was both eye-opening and frustrating as we tried to implement solutions. (Yes, Dr. Shouty-Dude, ADHD is real, and no, you can’t “conquer” it by having more “diligence” and “willpower.” Grrrr.)

If you or someone you know has ADHD or other challenges with executive functioning, ADHD Awareness Month is a great opportunity to learn more, and I’ve got a great webinar resource for you.

My NAPO colleague, ADHD Student Coach Leslie Josel of Order Out of Chaos, is one of my absolute go-to experts when I have a question about ADHD and executive function.

If Leslie’s name sounds familiar (and it should), it may be from the post Paper Doll Peeks Behind the Curtain with Superstar Coach, Author & Speaker Leslie Josel, where we talked about her multi-award-winning Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary,

and her book, How to Do It Now Because It’s Not Going Away: An Expert Guide to Getting Stuff Done, which helps middle school, high school, and college students overcome academic procrastination and better manage manage time and study skills.

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On Monday, October 24, 2022 at 7 p.m. EST, Leslie is going to be interviewed by another of my go-to NAPO colleagues, fellow Certified Evernote Expert Kimberly Purcell of Amethyst Productivity. Kimberly is an Evernote consultant and trainer for personal and business use, and is  stellar at knowing the right questions to achieve the best results. I can’t wait to see what she asks Leslie. 

Leslie and Kimberly will be talking about some of the pillars of executive function, including time management, memory, focus, and effort. Leslie will also be sharing the differences between ADHD and other obstacles to executive function.

The webinar, entitled Late, Lost & Lagging: Understanding ADHD & Executive Functioning, is free to attend, and is sponsored by

LESLIE JOSEL’S MASTER CLASS SERIES FOR PARENTS

Sometimes, the news isn’t just about my friends, but about friends of my friends. In fact, Leslie has two upcoming master class events that might be up your alley if you’re a parent (or grandparent) trying to create some order in your family or someone’s academic life.

In the first webinar, Leslie will be presenting the wisdom of Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart in Kids & Fibs: What to Do When Your Child Lies. Dr. Lockhart is a leading expert in pediatric psychology and a parenting coach. Here’s a bit of the description of the event from Leslie’s site:

All children lie. Especially those with weak Executive Functions and ADHD. Some lie because they are testing limits and boundaries, others because their “developing” brains lead to impulsive or inappropriate decision-making. And then there are those children who find lying easier than doing the task or chore they are being asked to do.

There are many reasons and theories behind lying behaviors.  But what we do know for sure is that parents feel very hurt or angry, and tend to take the lying personally. Or they are confused and want to correct the behavior immediately.   

In this 1-hour online master class, Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart, pediatric psychologist, and a parenting coach, will discuss the three reasons why children fib. She’ll explain how the most important step to remedy dishonest behavior is to address the underlying reasons behind it. She’ll also show parents how they can dig deeper to discover what’s driving their child’s decision to lie and offer tools to promote future truth-telling. Practical strategies will be discussed along with real-life examples to help parents effectively manage their child’s behavior.

This webinar is Wednesday, October 12, 2022, at 7 p.m. EST. Register at: Kids & Fibs: What to Do When Your Child Lies; the master class, on its own, is $29.99.

I’m particularly excited about Leslie’s November virtual master class Motivating the Unmotivated Student: With ADHD or Otherwise with Dr. Ari Tuckman. Longtime readers of the blog have seen me buzz about the brilliant programs Dr. Tuckman has put on at NAPO conferences over the years. I can honestly say that the bulk of my true understanding of how to help my clients with ADHD and executive function disorders came from attending presentations by Dr. Tuckman. 

Topics covered in this virtual master class include:

  • Why many teens struggle with motivation — and especially those with ADHD and executive dysfunction.
  • Understanding how attention gets hijacked and why prevention is more effective than willpower.
  • How to “feel the future” more in order to increase motivation in the present so your student actually uses these strategies.

(As a side note to my Certified Professional Organizer colleagues, this seems like an ideal class for getting continuing education units toward our CPO® recertifications.)

Leslie’s master class with Dr. Ari Tuckman is November 7, 2022 at 7 p.m. EST. Sign up for Motivating the Unmotivated Student: With ADHD or Otherwise on its own for $29.99.

If both tickle your fancy, click here to register for Leslie’s master classes with both Drs. Lockhart and Tuckman, and you can save 10%.

It’s not necessary to join either webinar live, as Leslie will send links to the replay the following day, and you’ll have one week to watch. However, you’re urged to act quickly, as there are limited virtual seats available, and only the first 1000 participants are able to register. (FYI: Leslie’s master classes and webinars tend to sell out.)

HOW TO CONQUER CLUTTER WORKSHOP

Friend of the blog, NAPO colleague, and fellow lover-of-purple Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP® of Oh, So Organized also has a big event this month. Linda is a past president of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, an expert in chronic disorganization, and a coach extraordinaire.

She also has amazing empathy, warmth, and insight into the human condition, as evidenced by her blog, The Other Side of Organized, which shares a title with her now-classic book, The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection.

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Later this month, Linda is delivering a workshop entitled How to Conquer Clutter: Understanding the Where, Why & What.

This lively virtual workshop is designed for those who are overwhelmed by clutter. Given that clutter can adversely affect levels of anxiety, as well as the quality of a person’s interpersonal relationships, sleep, and ability to focus, a little guidance can go a long way. A little buffer in your space is surprisingly effective in giving you room to breathe!

In Linda’s one-hour workshop, attendees will discover the truth about where clutter really comes from (and no, it’s not the Clutter Fairy), why it’s so hard to let go of possessions, and what you can do to reverse the clutter trend.

Linda says that you will come away from the workshop with at least one powerful and actionable strategy to use immediately to reduce your clutter. Attendees will have the opportunity ask questions and discuss their organizational and clutter-related challenges.

Linda’s How to Conquer Clutter: Understanding the Where, Why & What Workshop is scheduled for Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 7 p.m. EST and costs $59.

Be sure to register by Monday, October 17, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. to ensure your participation. This live workshop will be presented via Zoom; within 48 hours after registering, you will receive an email with the Zoom link and handout. I’m willing to bet something in that email will be purple.

MY LIST SIMPLIFIED JOURNAL

This last item is neither a webinar nor a master class nor a workshop. It’s something you can hold in your hands and make your own. 

My List Simplified is yet another brainchild from my NAPO colleagues and friends from my own NAPO-Georgia chapter, Diane Quintana, CPO®, CPO-CD® and Jonda Beattie, M. Ed.

I’ve previously blogged about their various ventures, like their stellar book, Filled Up and Overflowing: What to do When Life Events, Chronic Disorganization, or Hoarding Go Overboard,

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and their children’s books, Suzie’s Messy Room and Benji’s Messy Room. We discussed Diane and Jonda’s Organize Your Home 10 Minutes at a Time Deck of Cards in Paper Doll Models the Spring 2021 Organizing Products.

Their newest collaboration is a journal called My List Simplified.

As experienced professional organizers, Diane and Jonda recognize that people often have oodles of scribbled paper notes cluttering their desks, reminding them of phone calls to be returned, cards and emails to write, errands to run, and so on.

Clients inclined to rid themselves of little bits of paper by going digital might select an app or online platform to rid themselves of the mess. But Diane and Jonda (and I, and most organizers) know that there are still many, many people who are both comforted by, and more efficient with, paper solutions. For them, the business partners have created a journal to capture and corral all these lists, plans, and ideas in one place. 

My List Simplified is a spiral-bound, lay-flat, undated journal with solutions that work for those who best comprehend a paper environment. There are a number of features for simplifying information and making it easy to retrieve without bogging users down in a system that might be too complicated to maintain.

Use the left-side Check Your Calendar page to capture the various lists you’d otherwise keep on (too many) scraps of paper. This page starts with an inspirational quote and a place to specify the date (of which, more later), and includes small sections for:

  • 3 quick wins
  • Errands
  • Appointments
  • Household tasks
  • Calls to make
  • “Things I am thinking about”
  • Future plans/projects

Facing the Check Your Calendar page on the opposite (right) side is a Notes page for capturing information on the fly, such as when you’re on the phone and someone is giving you directions or instructions. You can also use it to capture context related to any of the lists on the reverse page.

This journal is not so much for the person who would normally use a Franklin Planner or Planner Pad to keep every 15-minute block of life scheduled and annotated. Rather, it’s for the person who wants to transition from lots of little sticky notes and fluttering pieces of paper to a centralized system they can trust, but which will not overwhelm them.

My List Simplified would be a great resource for anyone planning a move or home remodeling/renovation project. If you’re juggling to-do items for any sort of major ongoing project and prefer a paper approach, this gives you space to collect, collate, and keep it all in front of your eyes. And if you’re trying to keep track of which service providers were called, what they promised, and when materials were due to be back in stock, here’s your central location.

They key difference of this journal is that it’s a flexible planner for those who need a want or need a little support, but don’t wish to be locked into a system. The journal is undated, so you can determine the date and day for each Calendar page. As Jonda and Diane say, it is a “forever journal.”

You might use it during the school year but not during the summers. You might only use it when you’re starting to feel overwhelmed by everything going on during the holidays or for the run up to a vacation.

As professional organizers and productivity specialists, we can get caught up in presenting clients with complex systems to cover all possible eventualities and forget that that’s not what everyone needs (or wants). This journal offers a more relaxed, flexible approach to keeping all of “this week’s” essentials in front of you, even if you only need it one week a month (or a season, or a year).

My List Simplified has 114 pages measuring 8 1/2″ x 11″ and is made in the United States. It costs $25 at Diane and Jonda’s collaborative Release*Repurpose*Reorganize site.

If you have any questions about the webinar, master classes, workshop, or journal above, please contact my genius friends directly. In ease case, their names are linked to their own sites. Happy October!

Organizing A Fresh Start: Catalysts for Success

Posted on: September 26th, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 22 Comments

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on September 26, 2022. Rosh Hashanah will not be until October 2 in 2024, and changes each year, as the holiday is dependent upon a lunar calendar. The remainder of the content of this post is still accurate.]

As I go to press on this post, it’s about to be Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. (We’re going into the year 5783, though as the old joke goes, I’ll be writing 5782 on my checks for weeks.)

What I always liked about the idea of the Jewish New Year was the opportunity for a fresh start. Sure, in Western culture, we already have one (in either August or September, depending on your part of the country) with the beginning of a new school year. That always brings new clothes (and the jettisoning of old ones), new school supplies (especially brand new crayons and notebooks), and new opportunities.

Apples & Honey photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash

One of those opportunities, especially as we all got older (moving from elementary school to middle school, or middle school to high school) was that we could create ourselves anew, be seen as a different kind of person.

Let’s say you’d had a reputation as a goody two-shoes; you could make yourself over as a bit of a rebel. A ne’er-do-well punk could become an athlete lettering in varsity track. An academic washout could study a trade, and a beauty school dropout could rejoin the old gang. (Any resemblance to the plot of Grease is purely coincidental.)

But if you found yourself slipping back into old habits (messy lockers, messy friendships, messy study habits), the clean slate of a new year in the guise of a millennia-old religious and cultural tradition sure could be appealing. And if the start of the school year didn’t keep you on the straight-and-narrow toward a more perfect version of you? Well, Rosh Hashanah offered another shot.

And if that didn’t work, well, the new calendar year was only another 90 days or so away. 

FRESH STARTS FOR THE NEW YEAR(S)

The best known annual fresh start is January 1st; worldwide, people explore New Year’s resolutions, to various degrees of success. Indeed, because of the difficulty of maintaining adherence to wholesale changes in one’s self, I often encourage alternatives to resolution making, like having goals, themes, phrases, or words of the year, such as those I wrote about in: 

Review & Renew for 2022: Resolutions, Goals, and Words of the Year

Organize Your Life: The Truth About Resolutions, Goals, Habits, and Words of the Year

That said, some people still hold to the idea of making big changes when there’s a marker on the calendar to do so. If that’s you, I recommend reading what my colleagues and I have had to say at:

Join The Resolution Revolution

New Year’s Resolutions: Professional Organizers Blog Carnival

And, of course, your annual fresh starts aren’t limited to the new calendar year, new school year, or Rosh Hashanah. Worldwide, particularly in East and Southeast Asian nations and cultures, there are numerous religious and cultural new year’s observations, and you could choose any of those to give yourself a burst of inspiration.

Because lunar calendars (similar to the ones that make the Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah bounce around the Gregorian calendar) are measured differently from what we use, these holidays don’t sync up to January first, nor do they fall on the same Gregorian calendar date each year. 

These include:

As you can see, there are year-round “New Year’s” observations, if you’re looking to get a bit of institutional support for your new beginnings.

The meanings behind these holidays are as varied as the cultures from which they derive. Some focus on joy and celebration, others on introspection and focused self-improvement. The point is not to suggest that you necessarily observe religious or cultural New Year’s holidays or festivals, and certainly nobody should indulge in cultural appropriation.

Rather, consider these as inspirational opportunities to forgive yourself for any backsliding,  identify ways you can tweak your efforts, and give yourself a motivational pep-talk.

FRESH STARTS EVERY QUARTER

If you work in the corporate world, you’re probably used to buzzwords about splitting the year into quarters. “Let’s ramp this up in 2Q!” or “We’re looking at projections for fourth quarter.” The year is carved into four 12/13ish week quarters with new collaborative goals structured into that temporal space.

Indeed, Brian Moran’s best-selling book and website, The 12-Week Year, is focused on the idea of setting shorter-term goals quarterly instead of annually. Rather than trying to transform yourself in a binary way, from “not this” yesterday to “this” today, this program posits that there’s an advantage to carving the year up into shorter 3-month blocks vs. trying to make changes on an annual basis.   

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If you’ve only got 12 weeks, there’s less likelihood that you’ll get complacent — it’s like having a book report due every week instead of just one term paper at the end of the semester — and more chance that your sense of urgency (and thus, motivation) will increase.

Is your inspiration to make life changes based a little more in the earth and sky than the boardroom and stock exchange? You might be motivated to make changes according to the equinoxes (in March and September) and solstices (in June and December).

Feng shui consultant (and promoter of all things organized) Dana Claudat of The Tao of Dana has a great weekly email newsletter and videos that may help you focus on the types of changes you’d like to make and the environmental support to do so.

FRESH STARTS EVERY MONTH

Although there are cultural inclinations toward inspiring fresh starts annually, these are not the only opportunities. In the UK and parts of North America, there’s a superstition that saying “rabbit rabbit,” or “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” or “rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit” upon arising on the first day of the month will bring good luck. (One imagines that this is, at the very least, luckier than attaching a rabbit’s foot to a keychain…at least for the rabbits)

There’s also a tradition in many English-speaking nations, including throughout the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, for children to say “a pinch and a punch for the first of the month.”

The point isn’t necessarily to start acting like kids, but to recognize that the start of a new month, the flipping of the old paper calendar page, is worthy of notice. As they say, the days are long but the years are short. Taking notice of the passage of time is a superior way to value your time and make, if not resolutions, and least decisions regarding how you’ll use time mto serve your values.

As they say, the days are long but the years are short. Taking notice of the passage of time is a superior way to value your time and make decisions on how you'll use it. Share on X

A new month, like a new year, offers an opportunity for a reset. 

A FRESH START EACH DAY

Of course, you can make a fresh start every day. Every time you go to sleep at night, you are giving yourself the chance to reverse the humbling mistakes of the prior day and start anew.

And heck, you aren’t even stuck with a crummy day once it begins. As I wrote in Organize To Reverse a Bad Day, there are proven techniques for turning around a bad day (or one where you’ve failed to be your best self) and accomplishing more of what you want.

But you already knew that.

You know that each day is an opportunity to begin a new (good) habit or break an old (bad) one; intellectually, you know that you don’t need the permission of the calendar to commit to putting all appointments into your planner or hanging up your clothes or putting away your files before you leave the office.

You are absolutely aware that you don’t need to wait until a new calendar month or new fiscal quarter to stop yelling at your kids or start flossing your teeth more regularly.

But it helps, doesn’t it, to feel like you’re part of something bigger, a global effort to make positive changes? Certainly that’s why New Year’s resolutions have been effectively made (if not so effectively kept) for so long. Everyone joins together on December 31st to put that resolution energy out into the world, but by mid-January most people are struggling, all on their own, to stick with their goals.

“And So I Choose to Begin Again” Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

STEPS TO KEEP YOUR FRESH START FROM SPOILING

Appeal to all, or least most, of your senses. (I’m sure someone who knows more about essential oils or fragrances can suggest what scent might inspire creating and maintaining changes. If this is your area of expertise, please weigh in down in the comments.)

Start with signage.

The more you see a message, the more you’re likely to embrace it. If you’ve got a theme word or phrase for the year (or the month), post it where you can see it — on your fridge, the bathroom mirror, a sticky note in the center of your steering wheel, or wherever it will grab your attention.

Create inspiring images.

If you’re more visual than linguistic, create a vision board (showing the change you’d like to see in the world) as one that represents the change you wish be in the world. 

If, like me, you’re not particularly adept at collage-making and vision boards, see if you can find one photo that represents what you’re trying to achieve — an organized bedroom, an office that you’ve left behind at the end of the day, a better effort at self-care — and post that where you can see it at transition points during your day.

When you’re focused, you may not be thinking about your goals, but when you transition, moving between tasks, between rooms, or between stages of your day, those images will resonate.

Sing out loud. Sing out strong.

Pick an empowering song, one that makes you feel like you can conquer anything, or create a whole playlist of them. Making a big change, or a series of small ones, may be easier if you’ve got your own personal theme song. Some that I really like (but which may include some salty language) include:

Roar by Katy Perry

Good As Hell by Lizzo

RESPECT by Aretha Franklin

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) by Kelly Clarkson

It’s My Life by Bon Jovi

Confident by Demi Lovato

Fight Song by Rachel Platten

Unstoppable by Sia

And, for an amazing take on this song, check out Sri Lanken singer and cover artist Sandaru Sathsara’s version of Unstoppable. It’s not glitzy or glossy, but it’s motivating in it’s raw vocal and visual power.

For more motivation, check out these lists of songs that might hit the right note:

Set the stage for success.

Whatever aspects of your life you are trying to change, whether they’re physical, temporal, psychological, or interpersonal, the world around you can offer support. Want to exercise more and know that you’ll never have the energy at the end of the day? Lay out your exercise clothes across the room and then put your alarm clock on top of the pile to make your morning work for you. (Give last month’s Do (Not) Be Alarmed: Paper Doll’s Wake-Up Advice for Productivity a peek for good measure.)

If you want to make 20 cold calls for your business, design an environment that makes it easy and motivating. Create a one-sheet with the points you want to make, and before you leave the office each day, lay it on your desk so it’s the first thing you see every morning. One of my clients used to keep a box of dominos by his desk, and each time he’d made a sales call, he’d stack a domino on his desk, just beyond reach. Seeing that small stack pile up over the course of the month would motivate him; a sort of “domino effect” akin to Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” advice.

Be willing to start small…and keep going.

From Mark Twain, who said that, “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection” to productivity expert Brian Tracy, who advises us to “Practice the philosophy of continuous improvement. Get a little bit better every single day,” the experts recognize that we’re not going to get where we want to be by magic or overnight success.

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James Clear’s Atomic Habits tells us that starting small, super-small, on the atomic level, and making itty-bitty, teeny-weeny changes and achieving incremental improvement is the key to getting where we want to go. Our fresh start doesn’t have to be a big step, it just has to be a step that we actually take.

Count on accountability.

When you want to create a fresh start and accomplish your goals, you don’t have to try to achieve things on your own. Check out two now-classic Paper Doll posts on the subject of accountability:

Count on Accountability: 5 Productivity Support Solutions

Flow and Faux (Accountability): Productivity, Focus, and Alex Trebek

Block time for success.

If we wait to feel like doing something, we’ll be waiting forever. As you’ve heard me say time and again, action precedes motivation. The way to take action, so you can get started and achieve enough success to feel motivated is to block time in your schedule. That means that you need to have a calendar, and you have to abide by what it tells you to do.

Action precedes motivation. The way to take action, so you can get started and achieve enough success to feel motivated, is to block time on your schedule. Share on X

Don’t like being bossed around? Remember, you’re the one who told your calendar what to tell you! Don’t fight with the calendar; thank Past You for wanting what’s best for Current You. For some thoughts on how to block time in your schedule, start with:

Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity

While you’re at it, much of the advice I offered in this summer’s 5-part series on conquering toxic productivity is helpful for making changes the right way. Work your way through the ideas at:

Toxic Productivity, Part 4: Find the Flip Side of Productivity Hacks

to develop good habits, use the Pomodoro Technique and the Pareto Principle, and focus on momentum rather than perfection.

Borrow from the wisdom of others.

Getting a fresh start means jettisoning the weight (but not the lessons) of everything that’s come before. Look through the quotes below and find one or two that resonate with you. Post your favorite on your lock screen or your computer’s desktop wallpaper to prompt you to embrace fresh starts and keep working on the transformative changes you find meaningful.

Getting a fresh start means jettisoning the weight (but not the lessons) of everything that's come before. Share on X
“No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.” ~ Buddha
 

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~ C.S. Lewis

“Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” ~ Desmond Tutu

(This includes forgiving yourself. Every moment is a chance to be a “you” that is more congruent with your values.)

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” ~ J.P. Morgan

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

(Is there any character more of a perfectly imperfect role model for making fresh starts than Anne (with an E) of Anne of Green Gables?)

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” ~ Meister Eckhart

(I think this advice might be the hardest to implement but the most potentially rewarding. The beginner’s mind, or shoshin, is a Zen Buddhist practice that focuses on embracing curiosity instead of expectations, thereby improving experiences and relationships as you explore new aspects of your life.)

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” ~ T. S. Elliot

Please let me know which of these quotes resonate with you, or if you have a quote about new beginnings that you like even better.

Are you struggling to make a fresh start on something, whether it’s related to organizing and productivity or some other area of your life? I hope you’ll give these tips a try.

L’shanah tova. Happy New Year!

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