Paper Doll, Tackling The Stacks And Piles by Julie Bestry
From credit card statements to Post-Its®, birthday party invitations to oil change coupons, expense reports to dental appointment cards, our modern lives and horizontal surfaces are overrun with paper. We're not sure what happened to that paperless office we were promised at the dawn of the computer revolution, but the more we go digital, the more paper we have. OnlineOrganizing.com's Paper Doll helps make sense of what papers to keep, where to keep them and for how long, and will offer some solutions and observations about winning the 21st century paper chase. These tips will even help you keep more of those little green pieces of paper everyone likes so much.
By the beginning of February, most consumers have the doldrums. New
Year's resolutions to organize finances have
faded in the shadow of piles of credit card statement reflecting
holiday excesses. This February, however, brings some good news, as
most of the elements of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility
and Disclosure Act of 2009, designed to bring a little bit of fairness
to credit card practices, rolls into place as of
2/22/2010. ...
We're coming to
the end of our month-long Get Organized Month course on paper control.
In our first semester, we reviewed
the basics, including identifying and evaluating incoming
papers (and the backlog), purging unnecessary papers, halting the
influx of junk mail, credit card and marketing offers and other
cluttery mail, and
developing an initial system for paper management.
...
In the process of working with a client, I
opened a kitchen cabinet to find a plastic zipper-locked baggie with
one perfectly preserved and entirely dead insect. The baggie was
nestled vertically between two straight rows of juice glasses in an
otherwise perfectly arrayed cabinet. Retrieving the baggie, trying to
be both delicate and jaunty, I asked my client what was up. She smiled,
sighed, and said, "Well, I have to show the exterminator what I found
and where, and I couldn't figure out how to do that unless I put the
bug back where I found it." ...
People may feel
reluctant to share the details of their organizing obstacles because they feel
the clutter (tangible or temporal) is somehow a sign of a personal
failing. They blame themselves. (In truth, clutter comes from a
lack systems and skills appropriate for both the person and the
project.) ...
Aside from health-related
goals, top resolutions each year
include getting organized, getting finances in order, eliminating debt
...and a variety of desires that, at least in part, come down to
dealing with our incoming and stagnant paper. Today, we're going to
revisit some of the basics of paper management: ...
Shhhh. Listen. Can you hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of the mail carrier walking up the snow-lined walk to your mailbox? Squeak (the box opens), THUD (the mail drops in) and CRASH (the mailbox has fallen off the house or the poll from the weight of the post-holiday bills)!
Where does all the money go? Forgetting the recession for a moment, and
just focusing on typical planned (and unplanned, but non-emergency)
holiday-related costs between Thanksgiving and New Year's,
it's no surprise that the last five weeks of the year can be budget-blowingly
expensive. ...
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.
~Ellen Goodman
Depending on your life and lifestyle, you may be rushing towards this Friday's finish line of a holiday season, or you might be counting the days until things get back to normal in the real world and the television schedule. Blogs left and right are walking you through surviving the holidays in an organized way, but Paper Doll is already looking ahead... ...
By popular request, Paper Doll is repeating (with some modifications), last December's post on dealing with charitable giving requests. I invite you to give with an open heart, as well as a well-informed mind.
If you traveled over Thanksgiving week (or in recent weeks), chances are
good that you returned to a mailbox as fully and robustly overstuffed
as you felt on Black Friday. Even if you haven't been traveling, I'm sure you have noticed your
mail carrier struggling and your daily mail piles exhibiting a growth
spurt. ...
In lieu of sugar plums, many of you have visions of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce dancing in your heads. For other readers, Thanksgiving is about far-flung family members coming together to play a Kennedy-esque game of touch football on the front lawn (or, more likely, mom doing a semester's worth of her college freshman's laundry).
But for one subset of readers, this Thanksgiving week is the culmination of 51 weeks of intensive training. For such intrepid souls, Thursday's big meal merely provides sustenance for the grueling work of conquering doorbusters and early bird sales. For these people, it's all about Black Friday! ...
Supreme Court justices and reality show contestants aren't the only folks subject to background checks, and government and corporate vetting committees aren't the only ones digging for dirt. Employers, dating services, landlords, wealthy parents of celebutantes--all have an interest in checking out somebody's background.
Julie Bestry, President of Best Results Organizing in Chattanooga, TN, is a Certified Professional Organizer®, speaker and author. Julie helps overwhelmed individuals and businesses save time and money, reduce stress and increase productivity through new organizational skills and systems.
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YouData YouData thinks we consumers, and not third parties like broadcasters, newspapers, and spammers, should control our data and profit from our attention. Control what ads you see and when you see them--then get paid every Friday. It's enough for a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, at least.
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as you felt on Black Friday. Even if you haven't been traveling, I'm sure you have noticed your
mail carrier struggling and your daily mail piles exhibiting a growth
spurt.
OnlineOrganizing.com is a service mark of Bradford, LLC.
