Archive for ‘Professional Organizing’ Category

Highlights from the 2023 Task Management & Time Blocking Summit

Posted on: March 13th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 12 Comments

As you know from my post Surprising Productivity Advice & the 2023 Task Management & Time Blocking Summit a few weeks ago, I was set to spend three days at the beginning of this month attending, and being a panelist and presenting at the summit. This is the fourth year I’ve been involved, and it was definitely the best yet.

The theme of this year’s summit, One-Size-Doesn’t-Fit-All. Now what?, is dear to my heart. In February, the summit’s creator, Francis Wade, and Productivityist Mike Vardy delivered a pre-summit session to set the stage. Generally, Francis posited, when people are struggling with productivity (and this is true of tangible organizing struggles, too), they seek out experts, “gurus” who identify their so-called secret formulas. “Do this and all will be well!” And that may be true, but only for a while.

No one system for anything — career paths, life balance, making cookies, or having an organized and productive life — works for every person in every situation. At some point, it’s essential to take the guru’s advice and customize it for yourself so you can live an authentic life.

Even Marie Kondo, whom I chided for insisting her way was the one-true way (in my post The Truth About Celebrity Organizers, Magic Wands, and the Reality of Professional Organizing) has had to face the fact that her way doesn’t exactly work for the kid-filled life she now embodies. (See all the various recent articles with titles like “Professional tidier Marie Kondo says she’s ‘kind of given up’ after having three kids.”)

Early on, especially pre-internet, there were no centralized places to access productivity advice. Then, so many people got into David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD to those in the know) that it was evangelized everywhere. But with the expansion of the web, “productivity porn” proliferated, and people had (and have) access to so many options.

The problem? Whatever popular productivity methods are out there, people aren’t all the same. They are unique. As I presented in “Paper Shame” — Embracing Analog Productivity Solutions in an Increasingly Digital World:

Because I know my own style, I know what works best for me. Because I stay abreast of all of the options out there, I know how to suggest what might be best for my clients. And my job is to know that what works for me won’t work for each of my clients, and what works for my overwhelmed, 30-something client with ADHD and a toddler won’t be the same as for my single-dude on-the-road salesperson client or my new-retiree client whose spouse was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We’re each unique.

So, it’s important to know that it’s normal if the productivity strategies that work for your bestie don’t work for you. As you read blogs and books and incorporate advice, instead of accepting every bit of it “hook, line, and sinker,” Francis encouraged what he calls an ETaPS framework.

Simply put:

Evaluate your current situation and needs
Target where you want to move the needle (and by when)
Plan how you’re going to incorporate change into your approach, and get
Support through coaches, friendly accountability, and exposure to a wide variety of opinions and methods.

The summit was one stellar way to get that exposure. 

These three jam-packed days included 27 recorded video presentations as well as live interviews, panel discussions, and networking at digital Zoom-like tables. It would be impossible to share all of the highlights, which ranged from Olga Morett‘s compassionate, vulnerable approach to “unmasking” and self-exploration for neuro-diverse individuals to Hanifa Barnes‘ framework for building without burnout (which included a deep dive into understanding circadian rhythms and body clocks for chronotypes — apparently I’m a cross between a wolf (night person) and a dolphin (insomniac).

Dolphin photo by Ádám Berkecz on Unsplash

Thus, rather than providing a full recap of the summit, I’m going to share highlights and snippets that caught my attention, and which I look forward to sharing with my own clients.

QUICK BITES

“The menu is not the meal.”

Henrik Spandet, while talking about the differences among task management, calendar management, and meeting management, cautioned participants to remember that a task list is merely a list of opportunities, just as a menu is a list of dining alternatives. One must prioritize to maximize the experience. You can’t expect to do it all, or do it all at once. (He did not, however, discuss the advantages of eating dessert first.)

“If you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, just sit.”

Carl Pullein‘s take on self-discipline dovetails with my own advice for dealing with writer’s block, and it’s kind of like the reverse of the bartender yelling, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.” You don’t have to perform the task you’ve set for yourself, but if you don’t, then you can’t do anything else. No perfectionist procrastination by tidying your desk; no mindless scrolling.

Sit. Just sit.

And in sitting and not doing, you may find yourself motivated to start writing, creating, or tackling whatever you’ve been avoiding. If not, you will find yourself having to face the reason for your avoidance, which may prove equally productive.

During a third-day “Boundaries, Burnout and Balance: Finding Peace When Working from Home” panel with Renee Clair, Clare Evans, and Olga Morett, the concept of “the booty hour” came up — and how getting the butt-in-the-chair is that make-or-break moment.

Do, or do nothing, is a powerful choice. We are so fixated on never being bored that the idea of having to do nothing may make the thing we are avoiding suddenly a much more compelling alternative!

“What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so.”

Too often, Peter Drucker‘s quote is truncated as “What gets measured gets managed” but the full quote is so much more powerful. In other words, be aware of how your methods and strategies impact your work, but do not get so caught up in the minutia of how many emails you’ve cleared (or not), and focus on the bigger picture of accomplishing what you want and need to do.

Don’t spend so much time tweaking your systems to get a micro-percentage point of difference. Know what metrics will help you achieve the return on investment of your time, energy, and attention, and focus there. Prioritization can feel abstract, but pay attention to what has the greatest impact on your life, and what brings you closest to your goals.

“Busy leads to burnout; productivity leads to prosperity.”

Ayana Bard‘s message at the start of her five-part approach to mindfully productivity has been in my head for the past week. Her approach involves gaining clarity (and understanding yourself and your tasks so that you can prioritize), knowing where your time is actually going (by doing a time audit), and managing your attention and (mental, emotional, and physical) energy. 

Ayana accented the importance of mindfulness (i.e., paying attention with purpose), and noted that practicing mindfulness is easy to skip but not easy to do. (Hence the practicing part, eh?) She recommends incorporating mindfulness of your energies with regard to ultradian rhythms by working 90 minutes at top performance, taking 20 or so minutes for healing and recovery, and then starting another 90 minute cycle of top performance.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Professor Bret Atkins‘ presentation The Zen of Ten offered lists of ~ten (though he cautioned, not “top” ten) books (both well-known and a second list of sleepers), podcasts, videos, terms, and tools. The big-name list included works by David Allen, Steven Covey, Cal Newport, and Brian Tracey, as well as the “habits” triumvirate of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Atomic Habits by James Clear, and Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg.

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Slightly lesser-known gems ranged from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (worthy of a future Paper Doll post), Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic, Tony Buzan’s The Mind Map Book, 1908’s How to LIve on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett, and 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, about which I wrote extensively in Toxic Productivity Part 3: Get Off the To-Do List Hamster Wheel.

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There is no way to do his superb lists justice (and will be revisiting his other recommendations in future posts), but I will note that out of 22 highlighted books (yes, there were a few bonuses), there was only one book authored by a woman: Molly McCarthy’s The Accidental Diarist: A History of the Daily Planner in America.

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I note this because it’s a more damning comment on the publishing industry than of Atkins and his discernment. But that’s also a topic for a future day! 

Other books recommended by presenters were:

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Time Surfing: The Zen Approach to Keeping Time On Your Side by Paul Loomer

SCOPE — IT’S NOT JUST A MOUTHWASH

Trevor Lohrber felt that the true key to time management is often reducing the scope of a task rather than trying to increase your productivity and ability to do more. After all, our time is limited by strictures — where we have to be and when and how soon the work must be completed. Trevor presented three concepts, but it was the idea of pacers that caught my attention.

Did you ever take an exam in school and spend so much time writing the first part of your essay that when they called “15 more minutes!” you had to rush through your remaining points?

Although the point of deep work is to get into flow, Trevor points out that we often hit a wall when we look up and realize, “Oops, I’ve run out of time!” He suggests that by becoming more aware of time passing while we’re within a block of time, we can adjust our scope.

Trevor encourages using gentle timers at fixed intervals during a time block; for example, every 15 minutes during an hour-long work session. They key points are that these aren’t alarms (in that they’re not alarming), but gentle sounds, like an ocean or wind chimes; set your “snooze” to 15-minute increments and you can brush it away with the flick of your finger across your phone.

The idea isn’t to startle you out of flow, but just lightly alert you to the passing of time so you can stop to consider whether you need to limit the scope of what you’re doing now so you can finish the whole task on time.

The benefits of Trevor’s approach is that these “moments of mindfulness” keep you from going down any rabbit holes and ensure you’re repeatedly reassessing the work to be done in the time allotted. It allows you to work smarter because you are reassessing your scope regularly through the process, and improve your focus because you’re more aware of the scarcity of your time. (Trevor also cautions that this is not ideal for creative tasks, like writing a key chapter in a novel, because that focus can lead to tunnel vision, something you want when you’re trying to finish your accounting but not so much when you’re trying to develop dazzling prose.)

THE HOCUS POCUS OF FOCUS AND WHAT’S GOING ON IN OUR BRAINS

Achieving focus is the Holy Grail of productivity. We can do a brain dump to make sure we’ve examined all of our obligations, prioritize so we can work first (and longest) on what matters most, and create blocks of time dedicated to that deep work. 

But how do we gather the motivation to get our tushies in the chair and then maintain our focus to actually get it all done?

This is where mindset is essential. Misha Maksin talked about the flow state, something we’ve covered here extensively, starting with Flow and Faux (Accountability): Productivity, Focus, and Alex Trebek (in the section called Sidebar on Flow and the Unpronounceable Mihali Csikszentmihalyi), and how four “mega” time wasters (anxiety, overwhelm, indecision, and procrastination) block our ability to achieve flow.

He casts it as a question of whether we are in a “primal state” where we feel we are under threat, ruled by our sympathetic nervous system, and using closed, contractive survival thinking, vs. in a “powerful state” ruled by the parasympathetic nervous system, thinking in an open and expansive, creative way. I mean, wouldn’t you prefer to be curious, compassionate, and joyous vs. fearful, anxious, and overwhelmed? I know Ted Lasso would!

Misha explained how the mechanism of unproductive behaviors starts with beliefs driving our thoughts, which then drive our emotions, which lead to our actions, and then results, and those results then determine our core beliefs. This means that results are both initially determined by past beliefs and reinforce future beliefs, in a perpetual cycle that, if our beliefs about ourselves or our abilities are negative, our results very likely will be, also.

However, we can rewire our mindset so that the driving force is not our beliefs but our decisions. Per Misha, if decisions determine thoughts, which activate emotions, which motivate actions, which produce results, which reinforce decisions, keeping us in that productive “powerful state,” — we have a much better shot at attaining flow in our work and joy in our lives. 

The key, Misha posited, was to notice when our brains are moving us to that ineffective “primal state” and use our tools to focus on making wise, proactive decisions rather than being ruled by the negative self-talk often inherent in our beliefs. Perhaps easier said than done, but it’s a powerful switch. We can decide to get our butts in the chair now rather than repeat a belief ingrained since childhood that we “always” procrastinate.

DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION

Dr. Melanie Wilson identified a three-part approach to changing reaction distractions, and while there are practical elements, this is basically a psychological approach.

  • Adopt a new identity, eschewing the one that says “I am an easily distracted bunny” and trading it for one that says, “I’m a focused, productive person.” This echoes what James Clear says in chapter 2 of Atomic Habits.
  • Identify your unmet (emotional) needs so you can stop using ineffective, distracting coping mechanisms. Wilson notes that certain feelings lead us to distract ourselves with unproductive alternatives — overshopping, overeating, drinking, gambling, compulsive social media scrolling — and that the common advice to replace those habits with more productive ones (go for a walk, read a book) fails because they don’t get at the underlying emotion that drives the self-distraction. If we can identify the negative emotion, we can satisfy it with planned activities that do satisfy it. For example, Wilson’s personal example was having ADHD and craving novelty. By planning her days with lots of intentional novelty built in, she was less likely to seek distractions (like compulsive shopping) when she was supposed to be doing deep work.
  • Acknowledge troubling issues (what she calls “gnawing rats”) instead of avoiding them. Wilson notes that scheduling quiet time to think (and not merely to meditate), journaling, praying, or planning time to deal with a distracting issue, you’ll be less likely to experience the  harsh (and distracting) negative side effects of those problems, like sleep issues, IBS, heart trouble, etc. 

BEGIN WITH PERFECT

We know there’s no such thing as perfection in achieving a schedule that doesn’t overwhelm. That said, there was a repeated theme across the summit, the idea of starting with a “perfect” or “ideal” week, beginning with a completely blank schedule.

Carl Pullein advice was to:

  • Block out your sleep for the amount you really need, not the amount you usually get
  • Create a morning routine and block time for that (and if that’s not when you want to be doing physical self care, block out the optimum time for that for your needs elsewhere in your schedule)
  • Section off one or more blocks for communication (like replying to emails) rather than having it be the task you return to each time you transition between meetings or projects
  • Create space for “dynamic” aspects of your calendar that change, like appointments. Carl noted that we all need to have blocks on our schedules for our “Core Work” — basically, the thing for which we are paid. For me, that’s time working with clients, and those blocks are fixed; I work on weekday afternoons. For a salesperson, that time is spent on sales calls, not in staff meetings.
  • Set boundaries for the available times for these elements (obviously, depending on the level of control you have over your own schedule). For example, Mondays are my Admin Days when I don’t see clients, and I only schedule personal appointments (doctor, dentist, haircut) on Mondays; if your energy levels make it hard for you to be creative in the late afternoons, make sure your core work isn’t scheduled at those times.

Anna Dearmon Kornick and Trasetta Washington both took a similar approach, hewing closely to the formulation laid out in the well-loved “Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand” story of filling a jar.

Using slightly different language, Anna described the elements as:

  • boulders — the immovable, important, but non-urgent essentials of life, like health and wellness, and maintaining our major interpersonal relationships,
  • big rocks — our high-priority, important-and-urgent-but moveable aspects of work, particularly our deep work focus,
  • and pebbles — everything else, the non-important/non-urgent to-dos from laundry to errands to all the random reports and meetings that endlessly tend to crowd us out of our own lives if we do not preserve our boundaries.

Anna encouraged designing one’s week with four concepts in mind:

  • Parkinson’s Law — Basically, work expands to fit the time available.
  • Planning Fallacy — Due to an optimism bias, we consistently underestimate the time it takes to complete tasks.
  • Time Blocking — The act of carving out specific sections of our schedule for specific categories of tasks
  • Task Batching — Grouping thematically or platform-related tasks together, like replying to emails or sourcing graphics for blow posts.

Meanwhile, Trasetta added an element to the story, with the professor being prepared with containers of big rocks, pebbles, sand, and two beers (indicating always having time in your schedule for a friend). Her approach to designing the perfect week included color-coding (and name-theming) calendared categories with:

Green Machine — tasks that drive revenue
Blue Skies — educational and personal development
Mellow Yellow — self-care and rest activities
Red Tape — meetings, commutes, and essential but ultimately unimportant activities

She also added “advanced” operations, color-coding them as: 

Orange Operations — general business operations
Violet Vision — planning and strategic activities
Purple Passion — tasks related to community and spirituality

TECH OR NOT TO TECH, THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION

My own presentation,“Paper Shame” — Embracing Analog Productivity Solutions in an Increasingly Digital World, delved into the idea that focusing on what we need to do and then getting it done varies; it can be helped or hampered by a system or platform depending on our own personal needs and characteristics.

In our live panel, Ray Sidney-Smith led me and Misha Maksin through a discussion of “Paper vs. Digital in Time Management,” but it was less of a debate than the title might imply. We acknowledged that we each embrace a hybrid approach, whether by choosing disparate methods for different areas of our lives, or by combining them.

This year’s summit had the fewest presentations on using particular types of technology, and instead looked at platform-agnostic approaches to understanding your task management needs at a personal level. For example, Dr. Frank Buck‘s presentation on handling multiple projects looked at removing the friction often inherent in task management from three perspectives: using an analog (paper) approach or either of two different digital models.  

Again, not only does one size not fit all people, it doesn’t even fit all different versions of ourselves.

That said, Gynanendra Tripathi introduced us to his new player in the productivity realm, AlphaNotes, which seeks to help users “carve out their own trusted system for employing GTD elements.” They concentrate on leveraging digital storage and “lightning-fast query” ability to store and access information to support getting things done.

ONE SIZE FITS YOU — TODAY

During a live recording of the Productivitycast podcast at the summit, Ray led Francis, Augusto Pinaud and Art Gelwicks in a lively debate and discussion about the concept of “one size fits all” within the framework of productivity.

Francis posited that we are inherently greedy — we want to do more and achieve more, and the concept of “more” means that we will eventually outgrow many of the systems, tools and methods we have in place. Augusto reflected on what happens when we reach capacity — this is where our geeking out on productivity (and not just productivity tools) comes into play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

 
Our skill sets may stay the same, but our tools may need to change. To the idea that “one size fits all” with regard to tools and platforms may fit just for that particular function, Art made a great metaphor about “pants” in the closet. Tuxedo pants, sweatpants, work pants, etc. all serve one narrow function, but each is not appropriate for other functions.

They’re all pants, they served the needs you have at a particular time, but we have to accept that we probably won’t find one pair of pants to rule them all. We have to stop to think, “What fits you now” and:

“What productive pants do you have on today?”

Later, during networking, a bunch of us continued the “one size fits all” and “productivity pants” metaphors and I got to shock the Art, Trevor, and many of the men, who had no idea that women’s clothing sizes are not based on measurements (waist, inseam, neck circumference, etc.) as mens’ are but are often arbitrary and conflicting, and that even the same size across different clothing designers, or the same size across different styles in the same designer’s line, won’t fit the same.

Just trying to buy a pair of pants can adversely impact productivity! Maybe we can discuss that at the 2024 summit?

Paper Doll Presents 4 Stellar Organizing & Productivity Resources

Posted on: February 13th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 14 Comments

Given that it’s Valentine’s Day week, I wanted to give all of my Paper Doll readers some treats. In this post, we’ll be looking at three books covering organizing, motivation, and productivity, as well as an upcoming video interview series for taking a proactive approach to productivity in leadership.

GO WITH THE FLOW! (The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook)

If you’ve been reading Paper Doll for a while, the name Hazel Thornton won’t be new to you. We’ve been colleagues and friends for many years, and I’ve shared Hazel with you when I interviewed her (along with Jennifer Lava and Janine Adams) for Paper Doll Interviews the Genealogy Organizers and when I profiled her stellar book, What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy in my 2021 holiday gift list post.

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Hazel is a delight and full of wisdom — and how many other professional organizers do you know who are experts on photo organizing, genealogy, and family legacies and who served on the jury in the famed Menendez trial? 

But Hazel is pretty famous for one other thing — flow charts. If the topic of flow charts even comes up in any organizing circles, Hazel’s is the first (and sometimes only) name that gets raised; she’s that much of a subject matter expert. So, it made sense that Hazel would take her favorite creations from her wealth of flow chart wisdom and leverage them into a resource.

Hazel’s newest book, published just a few weeks ago, is Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook. And it’s a whopper for anyone looking for some turn-by-turn directions for getting organized, from where to start to how to progress logically so you don’t get stuck.

This 170-page, 8.5″ x 11″, portrait-oriented paperback workbook includes 17 charts covering all different kinds of clutter:

  • clutter in your spaces (closet, garage, kitchen, office)
  • daily clutter (to-do lists, general paper, kids’ paper, cash flow, mental clutter)
  • legacy clutter (keepsakes, ancestry, photos)
  • life event clutter (holiday activity, holiday décor, occupied staging)

There are even flow charts to tell you which clutter flow chart you need and to help you get back on track if you’ve had some backsliding in the decluttering process.

(You won’t be surprised that Paper Doll‘s favorite flow chart was the one on dealing with paper clutter. But I suspect one of the most useful flow charts overall might be the one on keepsakes.)

Of course, the book would be pretty short if it only had flow charts. In each section, Hazel follows the flow chart with detailed answers to four questions.

  • What is clutter? — You might think you know what type of clutter you’re dealing with, but the book helps you identify items you may not have even considered. In each chapter, this section asks pertinent questions about how you interact with the item (tangible or otherwise) and feel about it, probes whether it needs to be in your life, prompts you to consider its condition or situation, and leads you to make wise decisions regarding whether it still fits you and your life. These are the exact questions we professional organizers gently pepper clients with when we work together.
  • Why can’t I part with my clutter? — As a veteran professional organizer, Hazel doesn’t just tell you to “buck up, buttercup!” but employs the analysis of the “what is clutter?” sub-questions to dig deeply into why the reader might be experiencing challenges in letting go.
  • What should I do with my clutter? — With each distinct category, the book offers clear suggestions as to where that clutter can go so it will really, truly leave your life in the most beneficial way possible.
  • What if, despite my best intentions, I am still living with clutter? — Nobody’s perfect. And Rome wasn’t built (or decluttered) in a day. So, the book has guidance for continuing to make progress and for getting support.

There’s bonus material, like resources for getting help organizing and decluttering and blank clutter worksheets to help you identify answers and track efforts. (Be sure to read the content in the clutter worksheet examples, because Hazel’s down-to-earth sense of humor shines there!)

In addition, there’s a special section advising professional organizers how to use the content of the workbook with clients.

Go With the Flow! is subtitled The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook, and for those who are feeling stuck with (or stymied by) their clutter, this can be the catalyst to actually make progress by working through the clutter instead of just reading about it. The combination of the flow charts, where their visual approach to “If X, then Y” fork-in-the-road decision trees, with straightforward prose coaching through the what’s and why’s of decluttering, offers a one-two punch for knocking clutter out of your life.

Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook is available for $27.50 at Amazon. If you’re in Australia (to which Amazon/KDP will not market books with color images), or if you desperately want a landscape-oriented version of the book, you can purchase a PDF copy directly from Hazel’s website. (It’s a slightly finicky process, Hazel reports, so do follow the instructions.)  

DO IT TODAY

You’ve got dreams that sparkle. Friends see your eyes light up when you talk about your big, bold visions for the future. You know you’ve got fabulous ideas inside of you that can make the world smarter, happier, healthier, weirder (in a good way), or just plain better.

So why aren’t you working on them?

Why aren’t you getting on that stage, giving your TED Talk or taking a bow for your award-winning creation? Why are you scrolling through social media or counting your excuses or being held back by fear? 

Once I got Kara Cutruzzula’s Do It Today: An Encouragement Journal in my hands, I realized I’d never seen a journal like this. It’s colorful and beautiful, with each turn of the page yielding a vibrant new palette, but the aesthetics are just the frosting on this empathetic, wise cake, a combo of a journal and motivational coach.

Friend-of-the-blog Kara Cutruzzula is a writer and editor, and I start my day reading her newsletter, Brass Ring Daily. BRD is pithy, perky, and just philosophical enough to get you out of your bed and headed to the coffee maker. (Kara is other things: a musical theater lyricist, playwright, podcaster, and fellow Gilmore Girls aficionado. But the rest I’m saving for an upcoming interview, so you’ll just have to be patient.) 

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As a follow-up to her Do It For Yourself, the first in her Start Before You’re Ready series, Do It Today offers gentle motivational coaching. Read straight through and tackle the guided motivational exercises one by one, or devour the section-starting essays and then ping-pong through exercises that resonate most with you on that day.

(Or, perhaps start each day with the journal, using an exercise as Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way-style morning pages?)

Personally, I’ve started using Do It Today to help me avoid procrastination by — you guessed it — procrastinating with the journal. When I find myself doing everything except the writing or project I really know I should be working on (to reach my own goals), I settle in to reread one of Kara’s essays and then tackle a journal entry. (In full disclosure, the journal is so beautiful that I can’t bring myself to actually write in it, and tend to type my responses so that I don’t obsess about my ever-more chicken-scratchy handwriting.)

To give you sense of the approach, the chapter-starting essays include:

  • Go Toward Your Nerves
  • Start Before You’re Ready (I’m sensing a theme here!)
  • Don’t Be Productive, Percolate Instead — Worth the price of admission!
  • Stamina, Courage, and Mirages
  • Sweet, Sweet Rejection — Trust me, whether you fear failure (or, like me, fear mediocrity), Kara’s stance here will conjure up the best kinds of attitude adjustments.
  • Weave a Generous Web
  • Do It Today 

It would be hard to pick, but the chapter on percolation is probably my favorite. Maybe because Kara’s writing here dovetails with what I wrote in my series last year on toxic productivity, I was prepared to embrace what she had to say. Or maybe it’s because she illustrates (through a tale of John Steinbeck and examples you’ll recognize from your own life) that percolation is a brilliant cheat code.

Have you ever circled an idea for a while, finding the tendrils of a concept while never locating key to actually getting started?

Percolation is “…giving yourself time and space to think without the extra pressure to track your performance…allowing yourself to enjoy reflecting and exploring your options.” Instead of coming up with ready-for-Prime-Time ideas, Kara helps you find your sources of inspiration, ideas, and solutions, areas you may have closed yourself off from by focusing on the perfect end result. Long story short, when you’ve focused too long on the checkmark at the end, Kara reminds you to focus on the joy of creation and accomplishment.

In each chapter of Do It Today, Kara has interspersed pop-art messages to uplift, free-writing journaling prompts, and list templates to get you thinking.

Some of my favorite, deceptively astute lines and what they mean to me:

  • You are more powerful than your productivity — battering toxic productivity’s lie that your worth comes from what you deliver
  • Everyone is just trying their best with the information they have — reminding you that none of us are perfect and prompting us to start now (because you can’t edit a blank page)
  • Look at all you have — focusing on gratitude as well as noticing the bounty we possess rather than the short stack and what we lack
  • Do, don’t overdo — I think I resemble — I mean, resent — that remark. I feel seen.

In terms of journaling prompts, in the section on starting before you’re ready, there’s a page that asks, “Is there one conversation you’re not ready to have? Even if you don’t know how to say it, begin here by writing a few possible opening sentences.” Down deep, you know this works. You’ve felt a sense of ease after telling your BFF about a problem at work and how you dread dealing with it. But by letting yourself stop thinking of the issue, and just giving yourself a few minutes to think about it, in context, you’ll find the weight is lifted!

I suggested one of the prompts from the Courage chapter to a client who wanted to apply for an opportunity but feared putting herself forward. Kara writes, “Have you ever had to ask someone to write you a letter of recommendation? What if you wrote one for yourself, highlighting your strengths and what you would bring to your next opportunity?” It worked!

The list-making prompts are incredible in their powerful simplicity. If you’re feeling like a slug, unable to clarify your thoughts, Kara encourages that you write a list of ten ideas completely unrelated to your current project, and offers some examples. The key is that taking your focus off of a lack of productivity hoovers up all the cobwebs.

Other list prompts help you strengthen your arsenal of motivation-boosting weapons of stress-destruction, like noting people who’ve historically provided safe spaces for you to share your works in progress.

I can’t do justice to this creative, colorful guide to getting un-stuck, but I’d describe it as being like meeting your most inspiring friend for brunch and leaving full of waffles and excitement.

Do It Today is available in paperback for $16.99 or Kindle for $9.99 at Amazon, as well as at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop, Powell’s, and Indigo. You can also purchase directly from the publisher, Abrams Books. 

PRODUCTIVITY FOR HOW YOU’RE WIRED

My longtime colleague Ellen Faye is a consummate professional and ridiculously unflappable. She’s a Certified Professional Organizer®, Professional Certified Coach, and Certified Productivity Leadership Coach. She’s even been the president of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals!

Ellen recognized that there are far too many books out there by coaches telling readers how to be successful they way they, the coaches, have done it. Ellen, however, saw that her clients needed productivity solutions and systems that worked for them, not merely for her. That realization of the need for customization inspired her to write Productivity for How You’re Wired: Better Work. Better Life.

Front cover of Productivity for How You're Wired by Ellen Faye

Ellen’s book is designed for people seeking to be “more intentional about how they use their time and live their life,” and the book approaches this concept in three main ways. 

First, she wants readers to understand how they are truly wired with regard to how they deal with time and productivity. Ellen recognizes that individuals have different needs and ways of thinking in terms of structure preference as well as productivity style. 

In the first section of the book, Ellen guides readers to identify how their brains work best. She explains far better than I could even attempt, but the key is that you have to understand whether your priority focus is tasks vs. relationships, and then really comprehend what kind of structure (low, medium, or high) you need in your work and life — that’s situational structure. Through clear examples and charts, she walks you through identifying where, given your focus and structure preference, you’ll thrive or feel overly confined, struggle or succeed, power up or feel lost. 

Meanwhile, Ellen’s take on productivity style borrows from, and refines, other research on the topic, and the book helps you isolate which productivity style (Catalyst, Coordinator, Diplomat, or Innovator) best fits you, laying out the characteristics and best work process approach for each. It’s really eye opening.

This section also illustrates how understanding challenges like perfectionism, procrastination, chronic stress, and burnout plays into making positive changes.

In the second part of the book, Ellen teaches the reader how to create a productivity flow framework to transform current unworkable systems into customized pathways to success. Productivity for How You’re Wired walks you through setting your goals and intentions, using a time map, defining the essential structures, creating a priorities task list, and doing your daily and weekly planning. 

Productivity books often have one uniform approach to everything and then vague pointers for understanding how to begin and continue; you have to find where you fit in. Instead, Ellen provides detailed guidance so that no part of your life is going to fall through the cracks. Basically, it’s like having Ellen as your coach, sticking by you step-by-step, so you can get clear on your priorities and focus on the essentials elements for achieving what means the most.

The third part of the book combines the deep understanding you’ll gain regarding the right approach for you and the overarching framework you developed so you can apply the concepts to your own life and work demands. Using the right structure preferences and productivity style, you’ll see how to deal with meetings, email, decision-making, remote work, team leadership, and more.

I particularly liked that Productivity for How You’re Wired‘s chapters start with “Highlights,” overviews of what’s coming so that you can find your place. (I like to know where I’m going when I read so I have an “ah-ha” when I get there!)

The book has myriad real-life stories to help you see parallels between your situation and others who’ve been through it and achieved success. To that end, each chapter also has “Making It Fit” charts so you can make decisions using your own structure preference and productivity style and know what to do in the situation described.

You can use the Productivity for How You’re Wired as a bit of a workbook, as each chapter ends with a place to note those “Takeaways” you don’t want to forget and commit to the “Actions” you’ll take to help you develop your own systems.

The only drawback to the book is that some of the material on the charts can be hard to read (due to the confines of a tangible book); however, there are colorful versions of the charts available online, which allow you to expand the charts so you can see them more clearly. There are also supplemental resources on the website. 

Productivity for How You’re Wired is fluff-free. This is just about the meatiest book I’ve ever seen on achieving personalized productivity. This book is a real commitment — to yourself and the material — but short of working in person with Ellen herself, it’s an amazing way to tweak every detail of your approach to work and life to fit in everything important to you. If you make the commitment, I think you’ll be impressed with what you get out of it.

Productivity for How You’re Wired is available from Amazon for $17.64 for paperback or $9.99 on Kindle.

CREATING ORDER AMONG CHAOS

Starting February 15, 2023 and running through February 28, 2023, I’m participating in the adventurously titled Creating Order Among Chaos: How To Effectively Manage The Everyday Whirlwind Of Responsibilities So That You’re Empowered To Do More Leading & Less Reacting!

This free online video retreat is headed up by personal coach and business consultant Robert Barlow from Perpetual Aim. You might recall his name from when I did Robert’s The Leader’s Asset series on prioritization and leadership last summer.

If you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, you know what it’s like when you’re constantly reacting instead of acting, always putting out fires (that often turn out to be fireflies) instead of setting off your own carefully planned fireworks. Simply put, it can feel impossible to feel like you’re running the show, and instead everything (and everyone, and every sensory input) is distracting you from achieving success. 

It’s hard to lead when the ducklings behind you keep getting out of line. It’s hard to make progress when the phones won’t stop ringing about yesterday’s efforts (and other people’s priorities). That’s where the video retreat comes in!

Robert has gathered 14 speakers, myself included, who all share a passion for empowering small business owners and professionals to work more on their businesses instead of in their businesses (to borrow from Michael Gerber’s now-classic The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.)

Each of us participating are bringing our knowledge and expertise to these short but powerful video interviews with Robert, and you can anticipate that each will leave you with actionable options to achieve your priorities. Topics covered will include:

  • How to manage juggling responsibilities
  • How to lead and delegate to others
  • Ways to create stronger boundaries so that you are less overcommitted and overwhelmed
  • Tips, tools, and strategies that move you forward in life
  • What thinking patterns are keeping you mired in place
  • How to stay connected with your vision, goals, and ideals
  • How to manage your time on a day to day basis to accomplish what you desire.

This two-week video series is virtual; that means you can watch it at home, in the office, on your commute (provided someone else is driving the car/bus/train), or wherever you can get away from the hubbub.

I think we’d all love the opportunity to pick the brains of experts in productivity and leadership, and have conversations to help guide professional success. I’m excited to not only have contributed my thoughts, but I can’t wait to hear what the other experts have to say. Participating experts include:

And that’s only hitting half of the presenters! 

I have a complimentary ticket for you to attend. Just click on https://perpetualaim.com/JulieBestry to register for this free, online two-week “retreat,” and you’ll start getting emails to take you to each daily interview. I hope you’ll attend, and if you watch my interview with Robert, feel free to come back and share your thoughts on what I’ve said about conquering overwhelm and achieving prioritized focus for improved leadership.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my wonderful readers. I hope these books and the video series will help you achieve your organizing and productivity goals.

Much (productive) love,

Paper Doll

Paper Doll’s 23 Ideas for a More Organized & Productive 2023

Posted on: January 2nd, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 14 Comments

Happy New Year! And welcome to GO (Get Organized) Month 2023, where we celebrate efforts to make our spaces more organized and make ourselves more productive.

We in the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO) love this opportunity to help you make this year your best. To that end, today’s post offers up 23 ideas for achieving what you want this year in your space, schedule, and life.

CREATE A FRESH MINDSET

1) Learn last year’s lessons to build next year’s success.

You were probably super-busy last week, but I encourage you to read the final Paper Doll post of 2022. (Trust me, it was a good one!)

Organize Your Annual Review & Mindset Blueprint for 2023 is full of questions and resources for figuring yourself (and your last year) out.

I often joke to clients that while I’m not a mental health professional, I am like a marriage counselor between you and your stuff. Well, last week’s post is like a cross between a therapy session and a deep dive with your BFF. It rejects the demoralizing proposition of resolutions in favor of creating a fresh, motivating mindset for the coming year, whether with a word, quote, or motto of the year, and uses signage, a vision board, or a music playlist to keep your eyes on the prize that is your new and improved life.

2) Don’t take my word for it. Listen to James Clear.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news in the “habit” realm at all in the last few years, you know that James Clear wrote Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, a book that takes the research of habit researchers (like Charles Duhigg in his The Power of Habit) and makes it all actionable. 

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Theory is good, but what most of us want is someone to tell us how to do it, and preferably in a way that doesn’t make us hungry, cranky, poor, or frustrated. Clear delivers.

But this year, he’s doing something special. Clear is offering a free email course called 30 Days to Better Habits: A simple step-by-step guide for forming habits that stick.

It’s not a bootcamp. Rather, as Clear explains, “Habits are not a finish line to be crossed, they’re a lifestyle to be lived.” Over eleven emails (after an introduction), one sent every three days, he’s going to gently teach principles to help cultivate a new lifestyle (and not merely a set of “tasks you can sprint through during a 30-day challenge.”)

There’s also an 18-page PDF workbook and a Google spreadsheet with more than 140 examples (!) of how to implement the strategies in the course and apply them to different habits.

The course is based on Atomic Habits, but he notes that you don’t need the book to successfully complete the course. However, because I originally read a library copy, I decided to buy my own, because he’s also got a nifty set of bonus packages for those who do buy the book. Basically, you email a copy of your receipt or other proof of purchase, and you get:

  • Bonus Guide: How to Apply Atomic Habits to Business
  • Bonus Guide: How to Apply Atomic Habits to Parenting
  • The Habits Cheat Sheet
  • Companion Reading Guide email series
  • Habit Tracker

For what it’s worth, I bought my copy New Year’s morning, and had received the bonuses by the time I had lunch!

3) Make strides towards delight, too!

One of my favorite sites is the UK-based Action for Happiness. Each month, they put out a stellar calendar of tiny (Clear might even call them atomic) actions you can take toward a better life. Each month is themed, and you can find daily reminders on their Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. 

January 2023’s theme is Happiness, and on New Year’s Day, the assignment was to “Find three things to look forward to this year.” 

If you’re wondering what happiness has to do with organizing and productivity — hi, you must be new here!

But seriously. Clutter — all the excess stuff in our spaces, in our schedules, and in our brains — wears us down. It’s not at all uncommon for clients to be dealing with clinical depression or anxiety disorders, and disorganization and lack of productivity (and the stress of toxic productivity), only contribute to greater unhappiness. Think of these daily themes less as homework (“I have to”) and more as opportunities (“I get to”) on the path to organizing your mental health.

4) Collect good days — literally!

Each day, make a habit of writing down something great that happened. You can consider this part of (or instead of) a gratitude practice.

Our lives fill up with what we give our attention, so let’s pay attention to the good stuff. Next year, when you’re doing your annual review, you’ll have a tangible resource for looking back on the year and see the highlights, what you considered valuable at the time, and what might have been forgotten had you not made a notation.

Our lives fill up with what we give our attention, so let's pay attention to the good stuff. Share on X

Create a spreadsheet, an Evernote note, a pretty notebook, or — and this is my favorite idea — a Jar of Joy! (Someone else came up with the concept, but I came up with the name. Write a few words or a sentence about whatever great thing happened on a slip of paper. Fold or roll it up, and toss it in a jar or glass canister. Consider using colored slips of paper to make the contents look prettier, and keep your Jar of Joy visible, so you can be reminded each day that good things are happening!

5) Remember that tiny tasks count toward a more productive life.

There’s a reason why James Clear (and, ahem, Paper Doll) believes that those teeny, tiny steps lead to success. Whatever you want to achieve, whatever goals you have, I’d like to encourage you to figure out the teeniest, tiniest, itsy-bitsyist thing you can do to get yourself microscopically closer to the finish line…heck, to the starting line.

Adam Bulger at Fatherly.com came up with 27 Life-Changing Micro Habits That Require Only A Few Minutes. Many of the habits on this list take less than a full minute to accomplish. I liked item #23 on his list:

Always put one thing away before you leave whatever room you’re in. If you’re overwhelmed by clutter, you feel like you don’t have time to clean but habitually chipping away at the mess, one piece at a time, can make it more manageable.

START PLANNING YOUR YEAR

6) Select your planning system.

If you’re a digital person, your calendar is a continuous scroll of everything you’ve got planned. But if you’re a paper planner person (try saying THAT three times quickly!), you may have delayed getting a planner out of fear of buying the wrong one, or perhaps you’ve just not written in what you did buy, because you “don’t want to mess it up.” 

It’s your planner. You can fill it in with crayons and use scratch-&-sniff stickers, and it’ll be OK. Whatever inspires you to log your meetings and appointments, block your time, and work toward your deadlines is fine with me. (And if anyone gives you guff, send them to Paper Doll. I’ll set them straight!)

If you’re still struggling with how you’ll plan your 2023, go visit Paper Doll’s Guide to Picking the Right Paper Planner. It covers the features you need to consider in a planner (including whether you’re better off with digital or paper), as well as pointing out some of the best options.

Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash

The key to organizing your life is being able to visualize your time. So get everything out of your head and in front of your beautiful eyeballs.

7) Move into your new planner now.

Make a cup of cocoa, grab last year’s planner or pull up your digital calendar (using two screens, like your computer and your phone simultaneously) — compare apples-to-apples.

Go page-by-page through last year’s schedule and copy over everything that recurs on the same dates, like birthdays and anniversaries. Digital users can skip this step.

Next, add events that happened last year and are already scheduled to happen again, but not on the same dates (like conferences, work retreats, mammograms, dental appointments, etc.).

Use last year’s calendar to help prompt you to make a list of everything you need to schedule or add to your long-range tasks, like setting an appointment with your CPA to discuss tax issues. 

8) Don’t forget to plan time for your activities.

Appointments aren’t everything. Make time in your schedule for thinking, doing your creative work, attending to self-care, and so much more. Whenever clients complain to me that they don’t have time to accomplish something that they swear is important to them, I ask them to show me where they’ve put it on their schedules. [Insert cricket noises here.]

The truth is that if you don’t prioritize something by making time for it, it’s not really a priority to you. Treat yourself with the same respect you’d treat your boss or your best client or your Grandma, and make time for what matters:

Struggling To Get Things Done? Paper Doll’s Advice & The Task Management & Time Blocking Virtual Summit 2022 (I’ll have news about the 2023 summit coming soon!)

Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity

Organize Your Writing Time for NaNoWriMo 2022 (Even though the post is ostensibly about making time to write, it’s applicable to make time for anything you value.)

9) Nurture your commitment to your planning system…every day.

If there’s so much going on in your life that you forget to check your planner or digital calendar and task system until it’s too late, upgrade your accountability support:

  • Set an alarm on your phone to ring at around 5 p.m. daily to remind you to check your calendar and tickler file for the next day and the coming week.

  • If you have an assistant (especially if you both work remotely) schedule time each day to review newly-added appointments and obligations.
  • Have a family meeting on the weekend to make sure every appointment and school pick-up is covered.
  • Schedule your next appointments before leaving anyplace you visit intermittently (doctor, dentist, massage therapist, hair or nail salon, etc.) — but only if you have your calendar with you. Otherwise, ask them to call you. Never agree to any date without your planner nearby. In fact, if you tend to agree to too much, say that your professional organizer told you that you’ll have to wait to check your schedule before taking on any new obligations. (Blame me; I won’t tattle.)

10) Know where your time is going — before it gets away from you!

It really doesn’t help you schedule all of the things you’re supposed to be doing if you don’t have a handle on what you’re actually doing. To that end, Laura Vanderkam is doing something nifty.

You may know Laura from her podcasts, her blog, or her several books, including 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done, and the recently published Tranquility By Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. 

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Laura is running the 168 Hours Time Tracking Challenge — and yes, I signed up for this one, too. I’ve always enjoyed Laura’s writing, but when we both participated in the 2022 Task Management and Time Blocking Summit, I really got to peek behind the curtain to see how she thinks about time and our use of it. She’s talking about time concepts and strategies that are too rarely discussed.

The 168 Hours Time Tracking Challenges doesn’t start until the middle of next week, January 9, 2023, so there’s still time to sign up. After signing up, you’ll get links to resources and suggestions for tracking your time on paper (via Laura’s time sheets) or digitally, as well as links to her other writings on the subject. 

Like tracking what you eat (which can be emotionally distressing), tracking what you do with your time can be uncomfortable. When you realize you’re spending 3 hours a day on social media — and your job is not as a social media influencer — you may be upset. But if you recognize that you’re spending 90 minutes (or more) of every day “making do” with software that keeps freezing or helping a co-worker who takes advantage of your kindness, you’ll become more aware of challenges you can then overcome!

BECOME YOUR OWN MONEY HONEY

11) Make a TAX PREP folder. Actually, make two.

Tax season has started. Within a matter of weeks, your mailbox will start filling up with W-2s and 1099s, and you’ll need to keep them safe. At the very least (if you haven’t done it already), create a folder with a simple name like 2022 Tax Prep.

Look around for all of your tax-deductible receipts and charitable donation paperwork, and pop those in; when forms start arriving in the mail, put those in, too. Some of your important tax forms may come by mail; others, like your investment accounts or health insurance annual summary, might live in your online accounts, requiring you to log in.

This one two-minute task will save you so much time down the road. And time is money, so whether you do your own taxes or hand things off to a CPA, you’ll be saving the Benjamins as well as the clock-hours.

You don’t have to get fancy. A manila folder set in the front of your financial files is fine; or get a dedicated accordion folder like the Smead All-in-One Income Tax Organizer.

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12) Stop hiding from your financial truths.

You have to answer mail call! Not looking at your bills when they come in the mail (or email) is like ignoring a pain that gets worse and refusing to go to the doctor because you’re afraid of bad news. Financial ills don’t go away on their own.

Not looking at your bills when they come in the mail (or email) is like ignoring a pain that gets worse and refusing to go to the doctor because you're afraid of bad news. Financial ills don't go away on their own. Share on X

Why not start bossing your money around instead of letting it bully you?

Over the course of the next few weeks, get in the habit of putting your bills and statements all in one place, like a folder next to your computer. If you normally just get a reminder to log in and pay a bill, make a point of downloading and/or printing out your monthly statement. 

Make a list of all of your credit cards, loans, and other debts, as well as their balances and interest rates. Seeing it in black and white is the first step toward taking control of your financial future.

13) Get a financial accountability partner!

Last year, I said, “If you don’t know the difference between an NFT and BBQ…” It turns out a lot of people were investing in NFTs and cryptocurrency when they would have been better off having a backyard barbecue and inviting their friendly neighborhood fee-only Certified Financial Planner.

I’m no expert in cryto-currency. (And your brother-in-law’s cousin almost assuredly isn’t!) But whether you want to know whether you invest more in your 401K or your IRA, a fee-only CFP can help you out when your eyes start to glaze over. You pay for their expertise, and they give you unbiased advice because fee-only CFPs don’t get any commissions on investments you make. 

Does thinking about investment vehicles feel like choosing between between becoming a rock star or an NBA star (because of their equal improbabilities)? If you need support and strategies for getting your bills paid on time, every time, there are NAPO members who are financial organizers; you can also find a Daily Money Manager through the American Association of Daily Money Managers (AADMM).

BECOME A VIP WITH YOUR VIPs

14) Get your vital documents in order.

It’s a sad fact of life that people get sick or incapacitated, and sometimes shuffle off this mortal coil far too soon. Whether it’s illness or natural disasters or some other kind of calamity we don’t want to think about, we need to get our affairs in order. And that means getting paperwork straight.

Check in with these posts for step-by-step guidance to making sure you’re covered with up-to-date vital documents and a way to keep them organized.

15) Put your foot on the brake before automatically renewing your car insurance.

If you haven’t shopped insurance to compare prices and coverage in recent years — or ever — this is really the time to do it.

This year, I updated an older post that explained all of the elements of auto insurance, as well as how and where to organize your paperwork.

Organize for an Accident: Don’t Crash Your Car Insurance Paperwork [UPDATED]

But the post also talks about the wisdom of comparison shopping. While you’re at it, shop around for homeowners’ or renters’ insurance, as well. Why not organize some discounts while you’re organizing your paperwork?

16) Clean out your wallet and make an inventory.

You’ve probably got too much in your wallet. If you keep it in your purse, it’s giving you shoulder pains; if it’s in your back pocket, you’re likely misaligning your spine. Why not take a lunch hour and declutter your wallet, and then put it all back so it makes sense to you?

While you’re at it, this is the perfect time to take an inventory of the licenses, insurance cards, and debit/credit cards you have in there and all the information contained on them.

Pull everything out of your wallet, make two columns of cards on the table, and take a photo with your smartphone. Then flip each card over in the same position, and photograph the back. Easy-peasy. (If you’ve got a home scanner/copier, it’s fine to use that, but I’ll discourage you from using a public copier; it’s too easy for someone to surreptitiously snap photos of your information over your shoulder.)

Remember to password-protect the document on your phone or in your cloud back-up.

EMBRACE PAPER DOLL‘S CLASSIC PRINCIPLES ABOUT ORGANIZING

17) Follow the Ice Cream Rule.

I tell my clients, “Don’t put things down, put them away.” The word “away” assumes you’ve already got a location in mind. But good organizing systems have two parts: the where & the how.

When you bring groceries home, you put the ice cream away in the freezer immediately to keep from having a melted, sticky mess. It’s pretty rare for someone to put away the toilet paper or breakfast cereal before the frozen foods. The freezer is the “where” but putting the ice cream away first is the “how.” It’s so innate, you don’t even think about. But for most of your stuff, including papers, you do have to think about it.

Whatever comes into your space, when you go shopping, or even when things are free, decide on a home before you bring it in.

Once it’s in your space, build fixed time into your schedule for how/when you’ll deal with maintaining it or getting it back to where it lives. When will you do laundry? When will you file financial papers? What will be your trigger — when the laundry basket or in-box is full, or will you put it on your calendar?

Remember: “Someday” is not a day on the calendar.

18) Everything should have a home, but not everything has to live with you.

Clients are often so focused on organizing what they already have that they ignore a key truth: not everything you own needs to stay with you forever.

If it’s broken and you’re not willing to spend the time or money to repair it, let it go. If you’re sentimentally attached to something that’s outdated or takes too much space or effort to keep, take a photo of you holding it or wearing it. Then set it free!

If you have piles and files full of clippings and articles you haven’t looked at in years, you’re not alone. 80% of what gets filed is never accessed again. Trust that the internet is a vast storehouse of everything you’d want to look up, and if the paper you’re holding has nothing to do with you, personally, or reflects information you’ve long since learned by heart, recycle it and give yourself space.

19) Don’t fight clutter with more clutter.

I love The Container Store and all the office supply stores as much as every other professional organizer. (Really!) 

But buying oodles of storage containers — bins, boxes, tubs, and shelves — can only help you organize if you pare down to what you need and want.

Photo by Lia Trevarthen on Unsplash

When you see a great outfit at the store but it’s not in your size, you shouldn’t say, “Hey, I’ll buy this now and then lose (or gain) 30 pounds to fit into it.” Even if you do declutter the personal poundage, you never know from where, exactly, that weight will disappear. It almost certainly won’t be a perfect fit.

I’m not saying never to acquire storage containers (adorable or otherwise), but do it last. Once you pare down, pick colorful, fun containers that suit your needs, space, and tastes.

20) Take baby steps. Declare small victories. Don’t feel like you have to do it all.

When it comes to clutter, it’s not the space it takes up in your house, it’s the dent it puts in your life! If you’re late every day because you can’t find your keys and your kids can’t find their homework, it’s a much bigger deal than a cluttered guest room closet or drawers of old birthday party pictures that haven’t been scrapbooked. 

Focus on your biggest daily stressors, break them down into small, actionable steps, and solve those first. You don’t need to do it all at once, but if you develop a habit of doing a little bit at a time, once your space is straightened up, maintenance will feel natural.

 

21) Declare bankruptcy on clutter debt. 

Give yourself permission to declare bankruptcy on the “debt” of unread magazines, charitable contribution requests that aren’t really your cause, unworn clothes three sizes too small, or email from last July. In the words of Elsa, LET IT GO!

Keeping something just because you spent money on it or because it was a gift doesn’t make it any more valuable or useful; it just ends of costing you time (dusting or caring for it), space (that you could use for more important things), or money (spent on dry-cleaning or storage rental).

Keeping something just because you spent money on it or because it was a gift doesn't make it any more valuable or useful; it just ends of costing you time, space, & money. Free up the mental energy! Share on X

22) Hire a professional organizer.

As a Certified Professional Organizer®, I see how much my clients get out from support to make difficult decisions and develop systems to surmount those challenges. Find a professional organizer near you (or a virtual organizer) by using NAPO’s search function. You may also want to consult with our colleagues in the Institute for Challenging Disorganization.

Whether you need to reinvigorate a closet, learn how to use Evernote to get your productivity zipping along, or downsize Grandma’s house so she can move to Boca, professional organizers can show you the way. We’re not just experts in organizing stuff, but experts in helping you figure out how best to organize your ways of thinking and living.

23) Be gentle with yourself. 

Getting organized and being productive is a constant battle between your goals and other people’s expectations of you. Focus on what you need and want.

In the words of Mary Oliver poem The Summer Day, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The purpose of organizing and being more productive is to make your life easier — so that you can spend it doing the things you like with the people you love. 

Happy New Year! Happy GO Month!

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!

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