Archive for ‘Reading’ Category

Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking in Lectures & Presentations (Part 2)

Posted on: February 10th, 2025 by Julie Bestry | 12 Comments

In last week’s post, Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1), we looked at the variety of situations in which we might take notes. Of course, it’s instinctual to think of classroom notes or notes in meetings first, but as we reviewed, we take notes all the time in other ways.

To review, we take notes on other inbound information:

  • non-academic learning and skill acquisition
  • at conferences, in webinars, and at professional lectures
  • in collaborative meetings
  • situationally, such as when we’re learning about a diagnosis or a new project, or we’re fielding information captured on a phone call
  • in legal and financial situations, such as when conversing with professionals providing guidance
  • when we’re gathering quickly-changing information when dealing with a crisis situation

In the comments for that post, my colleague Linda Samuels described the process as “Listen, capture, and engage” and that’s exactly the case when someone (a lecturer, a presenter, a group of people in a meeting) are speaking.

However, we’re not always listening and porting someone else’s spoken thoughts into our notes.

Quite often, the categories of note-taking involve figuring out for ourselves what is important and worth capturing, such as when we do research or plan travel. And sometimes, the notes we take are completely of our own devising, such as when we are writing fiction or music, designing, inventing, or otherwise capturing our own thoughts.

So, Linda is right, note-taking can be about listening (to others or ourselves) or reading, capturing, and engaging with the material. Ultimately, it’s about what they said, what they wrote. and what we thought (and continue to think).

Our notes are extensions of our brains, and the more organized they can be, the better able we will be to use that information, whether it’s to get better grades, further our careers, choose the best course of action, or create something masterful.

Today, we’re going to explore some of the best methods for organizing our note-taking.

NOTE-TAKING METHODS WHEN SOMEONE IS SPEAKING

We’re going to start with the category we think of most often when conceptualizing taking notes — when someone else is imparting information verbally.

In these situations, you generally have little-to-no sense of what information is coming next (unless the speaker has provided an outline or detailed agenda) and — unless you’re watching a recorded presentation — you have no control over the speed at which the information is coming at you. Common situations include:

  • In a class lecture (whether in-person or virtually)
  • When taking a webinar (whether live or recorded)
  • At a conference (whether in crowded plenary sessions, like keynotes, or smaller breakout sessions)
  • In a brainstorming session or meeting at work

As we look at methods of note-taking in these situations, we’ll begin with text-based notes, and then look beyond at notes that employ graphics and symbols.

TEXT-BASED NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Sentence Method

Have you ever been in a course or at a conference where you’ve been given no sense of the outline of material to come? It’s hard to take notes without context.

If the information is coming out firehouse-style, with a rapid-fire, fast-and-furious assault of information (and often abbreviations or unfamiliar buzzwords), the best thing you can do is to accept that you will not get the necessary context, and treat each thing you hear as existing on its own little island.

Literally, each new thought or fact that you hear gets its own sentence/line in your notes. If you can transcribe it into your own words, do so; if you haven’t a clue, start the line with some quotation marks, write as much as you can of what you hear in a sentence, close the quotation marks, and put an asterisk (or whatever symbol you prefer) in the left margin, to remind you to come back for it later.

If you write each sentence sequentially, with a break between lines (skipping a line on paper, or double- or even triple-spacing on your screen), you’ll at least capture the essentials and give yourself space to revise and make it make sense once you do get context. That context may come either from continued lecturing, from reading a textbook or associated PDFs, going to office hours with your professor or a one-on-one meeting with your supervisor, or speaking with your fellow students or colleagues

The disadvantage of the sentence method, which is not very different from most people’s default “try to get everything down” method is that until you go back to review and flesh out your notes (and perhaps add context from your readings or later discussions), the notes themselves don’t really indicate which points are major vs. trivial.

The Sentence Method is equally applicable to analog or digital note-taking. Just remember, as we discussed last week, that digital note-taking temps you to transcribe rather than to cognitively process, making it less likely that you’ll learn as you take notes.

Outlining Method

Outlining is one step up from the sentence method in terms of organization. You know what a formal outline looks like:

I. Overarching categories start at the left.

A. Sub-categories of the overarching category are indented further right, and are indicated with a capital letter.

      1. Examples or subcategories are numbered and indented even more.
      2. More examples are further numbered.

a. Further sub-breakdowns get lowercase letters

b. And if you need to indent further, you can start using bullet points.

B. And here’s your fabulous second sub-category under the first point

II. Your second major overarching category goes here, and the process continues.

Formal outlining tends to work well if the speaker is organized, if you already have some familiarity with the topic, and especially if you’re provided guidance in advance. In a history course, for example, you’re likely to know that you’ll need to track political, economic, and social factors. In a science course, the material is usually presented from top-level down to the specifics.

A more informal outlining system will focus on putting the super-mostest-importantest stuff toward the left, indenting somewhat for sub-categories, and indenting more for examples or less important things. When you’re informally outlining, it takes some effort to get a sense of the speaker’s intent to create your sense own of hierarchy.

An outlining method works best when you have enough time to consider and make decisions about organizing the information as it is spoken. Of course, if you’re not entirely sure about the information coming at you (or the person lecturing isn’t particularly organized), neither method of outlining is likely to be much superior to the sentence method. 

Cornell Note-Taking System

When I arrived at Cornell University in August 1985, I had never heard of the Cornell Note-Taking Method. About a week into my freshman year, I sat in a biology lab where a teaching assistant taught us the basics, and (as I inhaled the scent of what I assumed was formaldehyde and anticipated having to be cruel to a poor, departed cousin of Kermit) I assumed that this note-taking method was specific to my school.

I had no idea that it had been devised 30+ years earlier by Cornell professor of developmental education, Walter Pauk, who made the method famous in How to Study in College. 

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The Cornell Note-Taking Method requires dividing each page into three sections. (N.B. — remember that abbreviation from last week? — some people refer to a fourth section, which is the top of the page, where you reference what the notes are about. You could call it the topic line or the subject line. However, it seems a bit too obvious to discuss in depth.)

First, the majority of the page is divided into two vertical columns or sections, with the left (Cue) column taking up about a third of the page and the right (Notes) column taking up about two-thirds.

Sticklers would say to divide it as 30% for Cue and 70% for Notes. In this regard, Paper Doll is not a stickler. If this were an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of notebook paper, the Cue column might be 2 1/2″ and the Notes column 6″.

The bottom of the page is not divided vertically, but spans the entire page horizontally. It’s used as a summary section. I’ve seen some articles require that the section should be 2 inches high, but again, I’m not a stickler. (I attended college before there were many pre-created styles of Cornell Notes notebooks. I just eyeballed everything. Nobody will put you in note-taking jail if your lines aren’t straight.)

How does it all work? 

  • The Notes Column — In this section, take notes by whatever method you can — sentence method, outlining method, your default note-taking style, etc. The key is to record the lecture or presentation as faithfully and meaningfully as possible here. Quoting the words Linda Samuels used at the start of this post, this is where you listen and capture.
  • The Cue Column — As you take notes, the cue column will largely remain empty, but as soon as possible after the lecture or the presentation, re-read your notes and declutter them. Reduce the material in the Notes column to their essence. What is it you absolutely need to know? This is where you engage!

In an academic setting, you might use the cues to “recite, review, and reflect” (in Pauk’s words) as you study. You can use the Cue section to write prompting questions to help you quiz yourself later. 

At a professional conference, these might be ideas you intend to put into practice, such as marketing methods or software platforms you intend to try. 

  • The Summary Section — This area gives you the chance to sum up the key information from that page in just a few sentences.
 

Cornell Note-Taking is best for academic notes, conference notes, or any time you’re focused on learning or key aspects of something presented by someone else, as it encourages intentional notet active recall. (You can also use it for taking notes on study material you read.)

Understand that it will be rare for the end of the page to sync up with the end a concept. That’s OK; use the Summary Section to summarize the concepts on that page. 

You might also wish to try the Cornell Note-Taking Method in collaborative meeting notes, and use the cue column for action items that are your responsibility.

To learn more about the Cornell Note-Taking Method, Cornell University offers a free public-facing course called Note-Taking Strategies.

Products to Help the Cornell Note-Taking Method

You can absolutely try the Cornell Note-Taking Method with a sheet of notebook or bank paper and a writing implement and just free-draw the dividing lines; a ruler or any available straight-edge will perfect your lines. But if you (or your favorite student) are more likely to commit to a method when  there are fun school or office supplies to use, you can add a variety of goodies to your note-taking arsenal. For example:

Cornell Notes Notebook — rustic cover, 8 1/2″ x 11″, lined, 120 sheets, $6.99

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Oxford Tops FocusNotes —8 1/2″ x 11″, 50 sheets, three-hole punched, $6.06

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Oxford FocusNotes — 6 ” 9″, 80 pages, top spiral bound steno version (good for lefties), $6.14

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Mochi Things Pieces of Moment Cornell Notebooks — 7 1/2″ x 10″ pages, unlined notes section, grid summary section, only 26 pages (!) but 8 gorgeous designer colors, $6.95

Horizontal-style iQ Organizer Tablet — 8 1/2″ x 6″, landscape, 80 sheets, $5.99

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Of course, if you prefer the digital approach, a number of digital platforms have Cornell templates built in:

VISUAL AND HYBRID NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Some people (like Paper Doll) think in words; in fact, I think in outlines, with Roman numerals, capital letters, Latin numbers, and lowercase letters, and in my head, I see how new, inbound information should fit in that mental model. (Y’know how they taught outlines in fourth grade? That’s what’s going on in my head.)

However, to my shock and utter confusion, not everyone in the world is exactly like Paper Doll. Not everyone thinks and understands best solely in terms of text-based notes. For the visually inclined, there are a note-taking methods that incorporate graphics that represent concepts and the connections between them.

Mind Mapping

Mind maps are literally maps that allow you to see how to get from one concept to another. The basis of mind-mapping is that, depending on the complexity of your understanding of the connections between concepts, you can use branching diagrams to draw the way ideas are connected.

And the better you understand a concept, the better you will remember it!

Mind mapping helps you to visually connect ideas regardless of how they are presented. The key is that you have to pay attention to the nuances of the way your lecturer or presenter delivers information so that you know whether whether something is a whale (a big, new idea) or a small fish swimming in the specifics with other little fishies. 

For academic purposes, reviewing your mind maps requires that you restructure each of your thought processes, ensuring you truly understand. You can even break down the sections of your mind map onto index cards to text yourself on small sub-sections, then piece them altogether like a jigsaw puzzle to see the big picture.

Nicoguaro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mind mapping for knowledge acquisition is often best done free-hand, as classrooms, webinars, and conference settings don’t offer the time necessary to quickly click and format a device screen; however, you can take traditional text-based notes and then study by creating visual links as you understand the relationship between concepts.

In a group/work meeting, you might capture brainstormed notes on a white board. For whatever purpose you’re using mind-mapping, if you employ an analog method as you acquire the information, you can always adapt and augment your notes afterward in a digital format.

Popular mind-mapping software platforms are MindMeister, Coggle, Scapple, MindNode, and The Brain.

Even if you’re a visual thinker, mind mapping may be hard to use in an academic setting, when you need to capture a lot of complex details. However, it’s an exemplary tool for visual thinkers taking notes on their own research and personal creative projects.

Sketchnoting

Mind mapping requires words, maybe a few circles about the big concepts, and lines connecting the ideas.

But what if you are so creative and/or non-linear that you need actual pictures for your notes to have meaning? Sketchnoting may offer a better solution; it blends text with doodles and drawings, as well as customized symbols, to help make sense of material presented in a class or at a conference.

Designer and author Mike Rohde coined the term sketchnoting in 2006. His process uses words, pictures, and symbols, including:

  • standard text
  • emphasized text (though colors, all-caps, “bubbling” of letters, and anything that makes the text stand out)
  • shapes, either on their own or combined with bullet points
  • “containers” or larger shapes, like boxes, quote bubbles, thought bubbles, for showing larger concepts
  • “connectors” like solid or dotted lines, arrows, or squiggles to show connections between concepts
  • symbols and icons
  • drawings, usually done in quick comic-esque style to capture metaphors

Most of the videos on sketchnoting are long; however this little intro (designed as a teaser for a course) is just five minutes and provides a good overview.

 

Personally, the most creative I get is drawing a delta (a Greek letter that looks like a triangle) as the shortcut for the word “change,” and arrows up/down/right/left to mean increase, decrease, backward, forward.

Additionally, my drawing skills are so poor that when playing Pictionary with my family, it’s been noted that my cows, cars, and maps of the United States all look pretty similar. (Conversely, getting the word “motorcade,” my sister once drew the entire JFK assassination, complete with the grassy knoll and the book depository. I suspect only one person in a family gets artistic talent.)

For a visually creative person, sketchnoting can enliven the material and make it grippier to understand and remember. 

If you’d like to delve more deeply into using sketchnoting, Rodhe has his own YouTube channel, and there are there are numerous books on sketchnoting, starting Rohde’s own The Sketchbook Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Notetaking.

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Next time, we’ll continue this series and look at the importance of annotation for learning, as well as note-taking methods for situations that do not involve lectures or presentations, such as research and creation. This will include Zettelkasten, Ahrens Smart Notes, and the Feynman Technique, and we’ll match up the various note-taking situations with the best methods, both analog and digital.

We’ll wrap up this series with thoughts on how AI can help us take notes (or improve our notes), provided we take certain cautions.

Tell me, did you use any special note-taking methods when you were in school? And how do you take notes when you’re in a class, webinar, conference session, or meeting? Please share in the comments.

Blending Libraries: How To Organize Books with Your Sweetheart

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

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

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

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

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

Or is there?

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

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

ORGANIZE YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY FIRST

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BLENDING PERSONAL LIBRARIES

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

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

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

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

Space Invaders — Introducing One Library to Another

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

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

  • Are they moving into your space?

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

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

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

  • Are you moving into their space?

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

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

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

Separate but Equal, or Joint Custody?

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

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

  • How do you achieve fairness?  

Do you opt for parity?

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

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

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

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

  • How do you deal with duplicates?

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

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

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

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

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

  • What organizing system will you use?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ugly Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BLENDING BOOKS: THE ONGOING DEBATE

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

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

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

The thing is, they were both right.

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

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

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

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

ORGANIZE BOOKS (WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER) WITHOUT BLOODSHED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOVING ESSAYS ABOUT BLENDING LIBRARIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Professional Organizer’s Take on National Library Card Sign-up Month

Posted on: September 27th, 2021 by Julie Bestry | 18 Comments

September is National Library Card Sign-up Month, and I want to make the case that library cards are your passport to a better and more organized life.

WHY PAPER DOLL LOVES LIBRARIES

I love libraries. My first real job, from my sixteenth birthday until I left for college, was as a page at the Clearfield Branch of the Erie County (New York) Public Library. My job involved helping patrons find books (back when we had paper card catalogs and no computers) and checking books out (back when the system involved using an overhead camera to take a photo of someone’s paper library card and the “borrow” card for the book).

However, the bulk of my job involved shelving books and “reading” shelves. The latter involved starting at the beginning of a section (for example, non-fiction) and making sure each book belonged after the one before it and before the one after it, per the Library of Congress classification system. I often think that this was the ideal training to become a professional organizer.

Back then, local public libraries had relatively few types of holdings: books, maps, record albums, and a truly dinky collection of audio cassettes. Libraries have come a long way, baby!

I marvel at systems I learned then, which I now use professionally, like organizing toddler books in dishpans, with book covers facing outward (record store-style) so that little hands can flip each book forward or backward without destroying a bookshelf. Because toddlers can’t read, they have no use for the spines of books, but a series of dishpans (filled with vertically arrayed, face-out books) allows tiny humans to recognize and access their favorite titles.

 

I have seen many beautiful libraries in cities all over the world, but my favorite is the A.D. White Library at my alma mater, Cornell University.

For most of history, libraries were closely guarded bastions of knowledge, and access was limited to those whose religious, academic, or financial positions allowed them to be considered worthy, but few libraries of significance were truly open to the public. In general, most libraries were subscription-based, where one paid for access, similar to how we use Netflix and Audible these days.

And even though public libraries had to close their doors to the public for much of the first year of the COVID pandemic, they did not turn their backs on their patrons. Most libraries offered curbside pickup; you could reserve your books online and then call (or, if your library was really fancy, use an app) to alert the staff of which pick-up parking space you were using, and diligent, masked librarians would verify your card, check you out over the phone, and deliver your “borrows” to your car’s trunk or hatchback. Most libraries also continued to offer programming for students, seniors, and other constituencies virtually.

To my mind, one of the greatest benefits of modern society is access to tax-supported public library systems. I consider my library card, my voter registration card, and my driver’s license as three keys to my sense of freedom (of intellect, of democracy, and the ability to work, play, and have an empowered life).

I consider my library card, my voter registration card, and my driver's license as three keys to my sense of freedom (of intellect, of democracy, and the ability to work, play, and have an empowered life). Share on X

But that’s me. You’re probably wondering why you should care about libraries, and more importantly, what this has to do with organzing.

WHAT CAN A LIBRARY CARD OFFER YOU?

So, what magical powers does your library card bestow? Your library card, what bibliophiles and library peeps like to call “the smartest card in your wallet,” grants access to a vast array of offerings.

Items to borrow

Although some special collections and reference materials can only be read in-house, the majority of tangible items at libraries circulate. This means they can be borrowed and taken home for at least a week, and sometimes up to a month, including:

  • Printed materials (and no, it’s not just books and magazines anymore, though libraries still have huge collections of those):
    • print books (including large-print books for the visually impaired)
    • audio books
    • books on CD
    • books in Braille
    • magazines
    • trade journals
    • graphic novels/comic books
    • sheet music

You can reserve materials that are currently out (or at another branch). In most cases, if your library is able to send you a digital notification of a reserved item’s availability, there will be no charge; for older libraries still using postcard systems, your reservation may be about the cost of a postage stamp.

Also, your library is likely to be a member of one or more systems through which you can request an interlibrary loan. That means that even if your library system doesn’t have a resource you want or need, you should be able to have them request it from a different system, possibly even across the country! (See? Libraries are cool!)

  • Electronic entertainment and educational materials
    • vinyl phonograph/record albums (though these are often in library system archives, the hipster appeal of vinyl has librarians bringing these out for display)
    • CDs (whether music, language CDs, or books on CD)
    • DVDs (including movies, courses, exercise, and how-to videos
  • Digital materials — Your library likely gives you access to a variety of digital downloadable services through the web or a free app. So, whether you want to satisfy your insatiable desire for mystery audiobooks while you’re getting your 10,000 steps a day or suddenly need to borrow a stress-reduction video while you’re stuck in the airport when your flight is delayed, all you need is your library card number, digital device, and some decent WiFi. Not all libraries have the same services, though these seem to be the most widespread:
    • OverDrive offers an absolutely massive collection of premium audiobooks, ebooks, and music that can be downloaded to your smartphone, Kindle, tablet, or computer via your browser or the Libby app. 
    • Hoopla has collections of thousands of ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels/comic books, movies, television shows, and music. You can download content to your device or stream it, and it works with computers, tablets, and phones. (Personal note: I downloaded Frommer’s and Fodor’s guidebooks to Italy and the UK to use when traveling, and it was amazing to have thousand-page guidebooks at the ready with no extra schlepping.)
    • Kanopy-affiliated library patrons can download or stream a wide variety of movies, including modern flicks, documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films, and educational videos.
    • Less common library offerings include AcornTV (classic and modern UK television shows and movies), IndieFlix (part of the library-friendly RB Media offerings) for independent films, and other services.

As with print resources, you can usually put ebooks and audiobooks on hold if there isn’t an immediate availability. You might be wondering why, if it’s digital, there’s not endless access. That’s because libraries purchase licenses to electronic media, much the same way you purchase an individual ebook or audiobook. Buying a license for each copy of a digital work ensures (or at least tries to ensure) that authors and creators get their fair share.

  • Digital educational platforms — While every library has different offerings, there are some particularly common and popular ones, including:
    • LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) normally requires a paid LinkedIn membership, but if you’ve got a library card at a system associated with LinkedIn Learning, you won’t have to pony up any money for the technology and creative courses offered for current and aspiring professionals. Learn a language, gain computer skills, or study project management or leadership development, all from your digital device.
    • Infobase has collections of how-to and documentary programming, newsreels and archival films, speciality educational films in business and economics, social sciences, arts and humanities, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and health and wellness. Infobase also has career skill resources for creating resumes, interviewing, and finding jobs.
    • Language education  — While my library system uses Transparent Language, your public library may offer Mango, Rosetta Stone, or any of a variety of other platforms to help you separate your Ciao from your Shalom.
    • Academic and career preparation resources — My library system uses the Peterson’s prep materials for standardized tests and college and career searches. You may have access to other resources for the high schoolers and job searchers in your life.
    • Database Access — Public libraries subscribe to an amazing array of financial, medical, legal, and other databases (including LexisNexis, PsychInfo, EBSCO — even the Chilton Auto Repair Database!) which are made available to patrons. 
    • Genealogical support — I don’t know much about genealogical research. (That’s why I wrote Paper Doll Interviews the Genealogy Organizers.) But libraries have everything from maps and directories to digital access to resources like Ancestry.com’s Library Edition and state archives.

It doesn’t stop there, though. Just a sampling of some of the other things you may be able to borrow from your public library system, either for circulation or in-library use, include:

  • Museum passes — Call ahead to see what museum passes your library maintains and ascertain whether you’ll need to make reservations to borrow them.
  • Eclipse glasses — During the last solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, I was surprised to find that my library had arranged for loans of eclipses glasses. The next solar eclipse visible in North America will be April 8, 2024, so check with your library well before then to make sure you put a hold on yours!
  • Board games
  • Classic games, like chess, checkers and backgammon
  • Computer and video games
  • Video game controllers
  • Headphones — Because it’s easy to forget your ear buds before an impromptu library trip and nobody wants to wear borrowed ear buds (ew), so go old-school with the over-the-ear kind.
  • Tools — Over the last few decades, more and more public library systems have started a lending library of tools, ranging from socket wrench sets to power sanders, saws to stud finders, cordless drills to hedge trimmers. Take a peek at the visual tool catalog of what I can borrow from the downtown branch of my library. 

Free (and almost free) library services

Computer Access — Almost all public libraries offer computer access for free; you’ll only pay for pages you choose to print.

Wi-Fi and Wired Internet Access — Not everyone has high speed internet access. In addition to there being a huge economic divide between those who can and cannot afford internet access, there are also infrastructure issues. Many rural areas of North America lack dependable internet and even cell service.

Because of these issues, during the pandemic students were often attending their remote classes in the parking lots of schools and libraries (which remained shuttered, but there were employees inside, keeping the WiFi going). Remote workers also had a tough time accessing essential tools. Libraries are an inexpensive alternative to setting up your workspace at the coffee house.

Tech Support — Many libraries offer free courses in basic computer and web skills. Also, some librarians are able to provide guidance on common computer issues.

Homework Help — Librarians won’t do your children’s homework, but they’re fonts of information regarding selection of the appropriate resources. Many public libraries also have homework assistance hot-lines and online homework help.

Tax Prep Assistance — Libraries don’t supply tax advice directly, but AARP and other community organizations provide volunteer, pro-bono tax preparation assistance at most branches. And even though many people file digitally now, tax forms are usually made available to patrons who want to noodle the math with paper and pencil.

Delivery — Not everyone is able to get to the library. Elderly, housebound or disabled patrons can often request to have library materials delivered to them. Contact your local library for available resources and review the offerings of the National Library Service for the Blind and Handicapped.

Children’s Entertainment — Public libraries have story hours, magic shows, movies, puppet shows, arts and craft activities, and other events to keep children engaged while giving parents some breathing space.

Quiet Spaces — OK, this isn’t a service, per se. But sometimes, you need a place to go to center yourself, read, or just disconnect. Libraries are safe, temperature-controlled, and, unless you’re sitting right next to the children’s area, fairly serene. Obviously, this is more difficult when we’re in pandemic mode, but libraries were known for their shhhh-iness long before quiet cars on rail transportation existed.

Low-cost Services

In addition to free services, libraries provide a number of services are supplied at at limited cost. These include:

  • Printing
  • Photocopying
  • Faxing — Stop laughing. It’s shocking how often something like this crosses my Twitter feed:

  • Scanning
  • Notary Services — Call your library branch in advance to find out if and when the services of a notary public will be available. If a member of the library staff is a notary, you may not even be charged.
  • Passport Services — New and renewal applications for passports can be confusing. Many libraries provide assistance with applications and photo services by appointment.
  • Meeting rooms — Libraries maintain private rooms for not-for-profit endeavors, and the cost is usually limited to making sure the room bookings are serious. Rooms may be booked for:
    • Book Clubs
    • Game Groups for children and adults. (Pokémon card trading clubs having been going strong for decades!)
    • Community Meetings
    • Guest Lectures and Classes — Years ago, Paper Doll took courses in origami and in how to use the library’s electronic book borrowing systems to transfer books to Kindle and Nook. (I remain more proficient at the latter than the former. Folding cranes is hard!) I’ve also taught classes and workshops on organizing at public libraries, and chances are good that you can find one of my colleagues teaching similar workshops wherever you are.

Libraries around the country lend Santa suits and prom dresses, cake pans and artwork, knitting needles and selfie sticks:

18 Weird Things You Can Borrow from Your Public Library

200 Things You Can Check Out of a Library Besides Books

The downtown branch of my own public library has an entire floor set aside as a “maker space” with 3D printers, laser cutters, an HTC Vive virtual reality booth, a sewing lab, a soldering bench, Agile co-working spaces with white boards and projectors, a photography studio — and a state of the art recording studio!!!

This is not Marian the Librarian’s public library, and Chattanooga is not even a big city. It’s just one that values libraries. Check out (pun intended) what your own library system has to offer.

SO HOW DOES GETTING A LIBRARY CARD HELP YOU GET AND STAY ORGANIZED?

Maybe I have convinced you that libraries are the bees’ knees, but you still don’t get what it has to do with organizing?

Self-decluttering

From a professional organizer’s perspective, the best thing about libraries is the opportunity to allow yourself to trust that you need not maintain the entire world at your house.

Those four hundred issues of National Geographic making your guest room floor buckle, but which you never approach except to dust? The library has them, too, for whenever you want to learn about the mating habits of the elephants of the Serengeti, but you’ll never have to dust them. (The Nat Geos, I mean, not the elephants. Well, those too.)

Of course, I’m not saying to give up purchasing books and magazines, but understand that there’s an alternative to becoming an accidental collector of books you’ll never read (or never read again).

If you are overwhelmed by clutter in your space, but have a voracious hunger to read (or listen to music, or watch movies), check your public library’s collections first before running off to Amazon or your local indie bookseller. (But do support your local indie booksellers when you find things you want to own. This has been a hard time for them, OK? OK!)

Having a library means you can have access to any printed book, ebook, or audiobook, or tangible item (DVD, CD, graphic novel, magazine) without it permanently taking up residence in your home. Clutter often develops because we have too much stuff and no place to permanently store it, and we keep it forever because we don’t have the time or inclination to deal with it.

Library resources come with a built-in decluttering mechanism: due dates! Sure, you can renew things online, but in general, things need to be returned to the library. You don’t have to make the difficult decision as to whether it should stay or go because it’s not yours! It belongs to the library.

Or, if you prefer, think of it as yours, but stored (and dusted, repaired, and maintained) by the nice folks at the free (with your tax dollars) self-storage location called The Public Library!

And you don’t have to worry about digital items you borrow. Ebooks, audiobooks, movies, and music all “return themselves” automagically.

Just make sure you develop a system for keeping track of the tangible items you borrow. I recommend having one bookshelf or counter in your house where you keep all library items. If you have kids, help them get in the habit of returning items to that shelf or space when they’re not using them. (Oh, and let your kids help you get in the same habit. Kids love “catching” parents neglect an organizing task, and it helps reinforce the standards you’re trying to teach them.)

Money-saving

Rather than spending lots of money for books you’ll only read once, or perhaps not even finish, or for accessing any of a huge variety of tangible and digital resources, you can take advantage of the benefits of the public library.

Adore a book or piece of music beyond measure? Consider the library experience to be your free ice cream taste test; then purchase it with the knowledge that it’s something you love and will keep forever and share with others. But you don’t have to shell out money for entertainment and educational experiences you’re not sure are the right fit. And you don’t have to feel guilty, because you know the authors and creators will still be getting paid through the system of library licenses.

Still not sure about the benefits? How about saving and organizing those little green pieces of paper in your wallet? This simple form will automatically calculate the financial value of your library card in terms of annual savings. (Of course, the cognitive, emotional, and societal values are priceless.)

SO GET YOUR LIBRARY CARD

I always ask new clients a variety of questions to make sure they have life essentials: “Do you have a calendar? A file system? A will? A fire extinguisher?” On the advice of my friend, internet-famous librarian extraordinaire Jessamyn West, I also ask, “Do you have a library card?”

I’ve even been known to drag friends to sign up for a library card when I visit them in their new cities. (Shoutout: Hey, Chris, I’m looking at you!)

National Library Card Sign-Up Month is the perfect time to get a card for yourself or your kids. 

1) Locate your public library.

2) Fill out an application, available at your branch or on most library web sites.

3) Show valid ID with your current address. If you’re new to town and don’t yet have a photo ID bearing your address, most libraries will accept two items showing your name and street address (but not PO box), such as current utility bills (e.g., telephone, gas, electric or cable), voter registration cards, or other mail with postmarks from the past 30 days.

4) Use your new library card often. Plan a weekly visit with your family and explore your library’s offerings. Develop a ritual for going to the library and your children will grow up appreciating all that libraries have to offer. Let your kids help you mark down due-dates for returning tangible items.

5) Set up a library shelf in your house where all the items you borrow from the public library “live” when they’re not being read or used. Having a set location where library items belong when not in use prevents them from going missing and assures you’ll be able to return them on time. 

Happy National Library Card Sign-Up Month!

Paper Doll Peeks Behind the Curtain with Superstar Coach, Author & Speaker Leslie Josel

Posted on: October 19th, 2020 by Julie Bestry | 14 Comments

Today, we’re talking with friend of the blog, Leslie Josel. You may already know Leslie from her business, Order Out of Chaos, and her various adventures in productivity. Her newest book was released this month. In this post, we’re going to peek behind the curtain on this multi-talented expert on ADHD, student procrastination, and getting everyone around to her to sit up and take notice of what she has to say.

Leslie, we met almost a decade ago at a NAPO conference, but we almost met at college. You and I missed each other at Cornell University by just a few months in the 1980s, the decade of big hair and oversized Firenza sweaters. Could you tell Paper Doll readers about your early life, college years, and the start of your professional life? How did they prepare you for a career as a professional organizer and ADHD productivity coach, as well as inventor, speaker, and published author?

 

I so wish we had met met at Cornell! That would have been fun. To save your readers from a long story, I’ll share this. I was a Human Development & Family Studies major. And not until I started my business did I pull all that old learning out of my brain. Trust me, it had laid dormant for many years. And I really believe it’s why I focused my business initially on the chronically disorganized, hoarding population, and of course, ADHD families.

For me, I was less about organizing and more about the human dynamics of it all. And if I’m being completely honest, I never really liked “organizing” and if I’m being really honest, I wasn’t that good at it. I was much better at helping individuals understand the root of their pain and things like that. Which in hindsight makes sense of why I stopped “organizing” years ago and went the way of coaching. And when I was a sophomore, I was required to take a public speaking class. It was like the mother ship calling me home. I LOVED it! I liked engaging on that level. And I guess I was pretty good at it since the professor asked me to TA the class the following semester.

And one other fun fact. My mom died when I was very young — ok, that’s not the fun fact. But my dad really raised me as a single dad. And he used to say to me ALL the time, “If you can write and you can speak in front of a group of people, then you can do anything.” Probably that was more true back then, but it definitely focused me. I always wrote in every job I ever had, now that I think about it. I was a speech writer for the head of an entertainment company. I was a publicist right out of school and I was ALWAYS the one given the writing assignments. It was just a natural outlet for me.

 

What would you say was the turning point that helped you identify your true calling and fine-tune what you do?

So, organizing is not really my true calling. But it helped me get to where I am today. Organizing was a way to have calm in a life growing up that was anything but. My mom was terminally ill my whole life so things in my life and home were out of control. Systems and lists spoke to me. It was always what did best. Give me the big project and I loved it. Keeping on top of all the moving parts was like a big puzzle for me.

But it wasn’t until my son was 5 that my true calling was presented. He was diagnosed with ADHD, and you need to remember there wasn’t anything out there like there is now. There was no “internet,” no magazines or conferences, things like that. I had to rely on my own instincts and gut to figure out how to untangle his world.

You can read my whole story on my site, but I redid my whole house top to bottom so he could function and thrive at his best. A friend saw what I did, sent me to a patient of hers, and two weeks later I got four calls asking me to come do what I did in their homes. I turned to my hubby and said, I don’t do this for a living and he said, “You do now!” And that’s how I got started. Going house to house by myself working with families to set up systems and structures to help their children with ADHD. Remember, organizing wasn’t a whole thing yet — this was 2004 — and organizing ADHD even less so.

© 2020 Order Out of Chaos

Now 17 years later, I’m an academic/life coach for teens and college students with ADHD and LD [learning disabilities]. And my son is 22. So you might say Order Out Out of Chaos and Eli have grown up together. But becoming a coach for both kids and parents was the missing piece to my “journey.” It allowed me to make my business virtual, serve a global audience with a wide range of products and programs, and connect with those that need the most help.

So if I were to say what the turning point was for me — it would be two things. Becoming a coach and turning my business into a virtual one. Life changing. 

 

Until recently, you were probably best-known for inventing the multi-award-winning Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management. Congratulations on winning the 2020 Family Choice Award, honoring the best products for children and families, by the way. How did your stardom as an inventor come to fruition?

Seriously, Julie? There is no stardom when it comes to inventing planners! Trust me when I say I don’t have a superpower when it comes to this. In fact, fun fact #2, I’m actually very conservative when it comes to my business. So inventing the planner was born out of a frustration and a need. And I think most of you can understand that. How many times have you said, “I wish there was a…” to solve whatever problem you had?

Leslie Josel tells Paper Doll, 'There is nothing sexy about inventing a planner!' Share on X

So there is nothing sexy about inventing a planner! I couldn’t find what I needed to teach kids “how” to see their time. And that’s a biggie when working with kids. So I ordered every planner that was on the market back then and put them all in my basement! I should have taken a picture! And the sad thing was they were all pretty sh***y when it came to giving students what they needed. So I started cutting from one, pasting to another. You get the drift. Then I had my assistant at the time (who had a graphic design background) make a prototype, then ran some off at the local copy shop and gave them to my local clients. And friends started calling…and then friends of friends. So I went back, made some tweaks and made some more. And it kept going!

 

The one very smart thing I did at the very beginning — OK, here’s Fun Fact #3 — is send them to everyone who was in my NAPO Student SIG [Special Interest Group] to get their feedback and to offer them free copies if they wanted them. That was huge. The reaction was extremely positive. And that’s when I realized I was on to something. So I got smart. And that means to know you know NOTHING about bringing a product to market, pricing it, etc. So I hired someone to help me firm up some of that stuff, get it patented it, price it. The rest I figured out on my own. And seven years later we sell over 100,000 planners all over the world to schools, students and stores.

What is really depressing about all this is nothing has really changed in the academic planner market. The category is still pretty sh***y when it comes to companies focusing on what a student truly needs. Slapping a new cover on an old style does not make a new planner intuitive to students. We say about ours: No Filler. No Fluff. No word of the day. A planner that does what it says it does. Plan Time.

And I’m REALLY proud of that, since I came up with it! OK. Time for FUN FACT #4. The use of planners, paper products and academic ones rises each year approximately 10 to 15%. And the biggest group that uses planners? College students!

A few answers to questions I always get asked:

  • NO to an app!
  • NO to an adult planner! (Lots of adults use our small size since it is really customized.)
  • Yes, I’ve been approached by a major company to sell, but the deal fell through.
  • And yes, another company tried to rip my design off. We sued and won! Being married to an attorney has its benefits! 🙂

But all kidding aside, the biggest OMG moment for me was the first year we hired a fulfillment service to pack and mail. The first two years, we packed planners in our basement. And at the end of that second year, my family held an intervention. Seeing pallets after pallets being moved into a warehouse for filling orders was the most “Are You Freakin’ Kidding Me?” moment. I was exhilarated and nauseous all at the same time.

 
© 2020 Order Out of Chaos

Your new book, How To Do It Now…Because It’s Not Going Away is not your first rodeo in publishing. You’re the author of What’s the Deal with Teens and Time Management?, and before that, you partnered with Susan Weiner on The Complete Diabetes Organizer. How did you come to write How To Do It Now…Because It’s Not Going Away, and was there anything different about this writing or publishing experience from what you’ve had before?

So you know that how this came to be was all you! And I will forever be grateful for your generosity. Fun Fact #??? Julie introduced me to my book developer. [Editor’s note: I’m blushing. But it was obvious from the first conversation with that publisher that Leslie was the ideal writer for the project.]

So here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the story. The last book I had written was in 2015 and it was geared to parents. I liked that book, but to be very honest I didn’t love it. I was held to a certain number of pages, format, etc. In 2018, I knew it was really time to write another book and the book I so wanted to write was for students. I spend all day every day with them. I know this population really well. I wanted to cut out the middle man, which in this case would be their parents, and talk directly to them. To represent them respectfully. To let them know that someone was truly listening and understood. To speak to them the way they would want to be spoken to. So this whole writing experience was super different from what I was used to.

My last book was geared to parents. My Dear ADHD Family Coach columns are geared to parents. Even the articles I wrote for Family Circle were geared to parents. Being able to write for students was very freeing. I knew I had to speak their language. I knew I had to bring in all my student stories so anyone reading the book could identify. I knew it had to be real. NOT judgmental. And funny! So in some ways, this book was super easy to write. The greatest compliment I get after someone who knows me reads this book is that they feel like I am speaking directly at them.

And working with a publisher that knew the YA [Young Adult] space really well was beyond a dream. They let me do my “thing.” They didn’t edit my natural voice. They let me get creative with the chapter titles, the classroom confessionals, and all the funny stuff in the book. In other words, they trusted me. And in turn I trusted them.

The writing experience is different for every author. In the lingo of NaNoWriMo, there are plotters (people who outline) and pantsers (those who write by the seat of their pants). What are you? Do you think you apply the anti-procrastination advice you give in the book to how you actually wrote the book? 

I had no choice but to be an outliner. My publisher demanded it. And that was hugely helpful. It helped me craft the narrative and be very deliberate in my writing. So—and sit down for this one—I only had two months to write the book and during THE busiest season of my business. I wrote the time management chapter over Memorial Day weekend of 2019. I was given notes and approval to keep going two days later with a deadline for my first draft for August 1st. NO ONE should ever write a book like that.

I wrote the book out of order, literally. Made deadlines for myself along the way. But it wasn’t just the chapters I had to write. I had to have all the apps, all the resources, all the student stories, all the classroom confessionals, everything. It was insane. I hired my son to manage the classroom confessional portion. He wrote up 20 interview questions, reached out to all my students on my behalf, followed up with everyone to get all the answers back, and then picked the best answers for the book. My daughter helped by taking every app and every resource I wanted to include to make sure they were current, etc. My husband proofread every chapter, giving me edits and notes when something didn’t make sense or needed more context. I would never have gotten through by the deadline if I hadn’t had their help. I did not involve my Order Out of Chaos team, since we were also in the middle of back-to-school season and they had to literally hold down the fort. Procrastinate? Not on this! Who had the time?!!

But I will say that I let myself use the advice I give to my students. I wrote the book completely out of order. Meaning, I wrote chapter 2, then 7, then 4, then 8. That type of thing. And I wrote the first chapter last. This helped me stay unstuck.

In your column Dear ADHD Family Coach for Attitude Magazine and in your previous longtime gig as a contributing parenting writer for Family Circle Magazine, you wrote for adults. In How To Do It Now…Because It’s Not Going Away, you’re talking to teens and college-age young adults. Which do you find easier? Why?

I think I answered this in the question above. But I will say this. Kids can smell bullsh*t. So you have to balance being overly nice and supportive with being fair but calling them out on their bullsh*t. And I think that is my super power after all these years.

What have readers been telling you is their favorite advice or anecdote from the book? What is YOUR favorite part of the book?

On a macro level, what’s resonating with people are the student stories. Everything from the student who works under the kitchen table to the college student who writes his assignments on paper towels. Parents are identifying with these stories as they are seeing their own kids in them and students are seeing themselves in these scenarios, too. How can you make up a story about a kid who writes on paper towels! Seriously?

Leslie Josel tells Paper Doll, 'You can procrastinate and that doesn’t make you a procrastinator.' Share on X

On a micro level, it’s the concept that you can procrastinate and that doesn’t make you a procrastinator. So to get serious for a minute, most of these kids have been told horrible things about themselves or they think them on their own. They have been told they’re lazy or stupid or worthless. And right at the beginning of the book, I address this and squash this. Huge reaction to that.

And my favorite part of the book? God, Julie that’s like picking my favorite child. I would say the personal stuff — like Eli and Maddie’s own stories, and especially Eli’s quote right at the beginning. It sets up the whole book just like that. [Author’s Note: Eli’s quote is at the beginning of the introduction. You’ll have to read the book to hear what Eli has to say, but it’s a doozy of a change in mindset!]

 

Leslie, you’re a Renaissance woman—you work with clients, write, do public speaking and webinars—but when you aren’t busy being Leslie the Expert, what’s going on in your life?

My business takes an enormous amount of my time. So if you had asked me this question back in February, I would have said travel. My husband and I have a lot of wanderlust in us. We both travel a lot for our respective businesses and then on our own, with friends and with our adult children whenever we can. We are very fortunate that we can do what we do to some degree no matter where we are. Remind me to tell you the story of when I gave a webinar sitting on the bathroom floor in my hotel in Dublin. [Author’s Note: Please let us know in the comments if that’s a story you need to hear!] I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, traveling was all consuming until March. It is seriously a hobby and a passion. Before the pandemic hit, if I was “home,” you would find me at a concert or broadway show. (My hubby is in the music business.) The perks of living outside of NYC. Two adult children that like hanging with their parents and I wouldn’t have it any other way. A hubby who I not only love but really really like. He’s my true partner in every way. And a posse of girl friends who are always up for a walk, yoga class, a cocktail, frozen yogurt, or a GNO. And if I need a true escape I swim, read entertainment magazines, and watch some fun television.

 

 

To get a sneak peak of the first chapter of How to Do It Now…Because It’s Not Going Away, access Leslie’s Spotify study playlists, and read reviews of the new book (available on Amazon and Leslie’s site), visit the book page at Order Out of Chaos. You can also find Leslie on YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. And you can read my review of the book on Amazon, Goodreads, and the Book Resources page here on my site.

 

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