Before I can get to my best advice on paper management, however, I must first stop and have a conversation about SHREDDING.   “Why bother?” You may ask.  “Shouldn’t you just shred EVERYTHING to be on the safe side?”

If you are fortunate enough to have one of those big power shredders in your workplace then the answer is simple:  Yes.  However, for most of us especially those of us working out of a home office, we have to be a little more selective about exactly what paper trash we choose to shred.  Otherwise it costs too much in time, money, and energy.

I for one am very vigilant about shredding anything with my credit card number and Social Security number on it, but I figure anyone can access my home address online or from a phone book.  If you’re not comfortable with having your address in the recycling bin, however, you should expect to do 20 times as much shredding as I do and that 20 dollar shredder is not going to cut it.

After working with clients we may end up with four boxes of paper to shred and they tell me they are going to shred it while they are watching television, because they are good at multitasking.  It’s a fantasy.

I conducted an experiment once on just a quarter of a banker’s box of paper.  I have a medium sized shredder and I wanted to see how fast it could shred this quarter box of papers.  It was an eye opener.  Between the shredder’s overheating and the jamming up and unclogging, it took me the better part of a Sunday, my so called day of rest. I wasn’t rested. I was livid.

If you’ve got a lot of shredding to do, do yourself a favor and trust it to the professionals.  My choice is Shred Station Express.  They’ll shred 4 banker boxes of paper for about 60 bucks.  They are extremely professional and reliable and they even destroy electronic waste.

In case you don’t get their newsletter, here’s the latest, which has a great answer to the question…

Isn’t it cheaper to shred your own paper?

We did a time in motion study with one customer who thought they were saving money by shredding their own paper in a small 10 sheet shredder. Here is what we found.
The customer was having their receptionist do the shredding at her desk, employees would drop off the material in a basket during the day, and the receptionist spent on average 30 minutes at the end of each day shredding.
The receptionist was paid $14.50 an hour ($30,000 a year), with benefits and company paid taxes that came to $19.76.  So a half hour cost the company $9.88 a day.
$9.88 a day times  5 days a week equals $49.40 a week.  They were convinced that our monthly console service at $39.99 a month was a deal! This does not take into consideration:

**The amount of dust created around her desk.
**The amount of noise created.
**The fact that she had a hard time answering the phone (her real job) while she was shredding.
**The cost to replace the light duty shredder twice a year, or the electricity to run it.

Effective organizing is all about balancing priorities.  When it comes to shredding, be aware of the consequences of shredding EVERYTHING and if that’s the path you need to take, seriously consider the irreplaceable time and energy, you are going to devote to it.

Coalhouse Pizza

On Tuesday Coalhouse Pizza featured a beer dinner, five courses of delicious pairings of gourmet food and varieties of  Stone Brewing beer.  I was in heaven.  This foodie/beer boy did not, however, leave the organizer in me at home.  I was blown away by how well organized the event was!

Of course, I’m biased, but I believe the success of the operation was down to one MVP:  clear work surfaces.   Now don’t get me wrong, the planning, the prep work, the team work and the management (Captain Gerard rocks!) were all first rate and indispensable, but in terms of reliable systems to deliver all these features, the clear work surfaces were the unsung heroes.

In past posts I’ve made no secret of the fact that I believe there is no better organizing tool than a clear work surface, but that’s not enough.  Every effective organizing system is made up of two vital components:  an appropriate structure and an easy habit.  If the clear work surface is the ultimate organizing structure, what then is the habit that must accompany it?

A clear work surface must be accompanied by the habit of clearing it between processing, NOT MOSTLY, but 100%, whether this processing concludes at the end of the work day or between courses.  The team at Coalhouse Pizza gets this.

They had the challenge of serving 5 courses with 5 different beers to 95 guests. That’s 950 servings in less than 2 hours! There were already lots of pizza-prepping surfaces in that kitchen, but their first order of business was to bring in two extra large tables into the middle of the floor for the major processing task ahead.  You can see all the surfaces in the photos above.

As you can also see, these surfaces aren’t mostly clear between courses, they’re 100% clear.  How do they know each course is 100% done? Because the surfaces are 100% clear, 100% ready for the next course.  That’s the pattern to aspire to for EVERY work surface in your home or place of business.

At Coalhouse Pizza these surfaces are treated as runways for take off, not airplane hangars for storage.  Food circulates in, gets prepped, and flies off like airplanes.  Of course, for these runways to work here, there must be similar runways in other parts of the restaurant.  In the kitchen where the food is cooked there must be clean work surfaces.  There must also be clear surfaces to process all the dirty dishes as they are emptied and circulate back from the restaurant floor.

To enjoy a well organized home or office, take a tip from a successful restaurant like Coalhouse Pizza and keep those runway surfaces clear for take-off!

Bills-to-pay need a home, material-to-read need a home, and statements-to-file need a home, but it’s a mistake to allow the daily collection to take up residence ANYWHERE.

This advice is old, but I have an approach that is new.  Seek garbage opportunities instead of action opportunities.  After all, you’ve got too many actions on your plate already, right?

Stand over your recycling bin and drop it in.  The catalogs with products you don’t need?  Drop it in!  The bulky prospectus that you’ll never have an interest in reading? Drop it in!  The Triple A magazine with information you can find online?  Drop it in!

Of course you will rescue the bills, statements, and magazines from the trash, but there are further garbage opportunities.  Open the envelopes and toss them.  Toss the useless inserts and, if you pay online, toss the return envelopes too.

The goal is to keep as LITTLE as you can.  This tidy little massacre should take no more than 3 minutes.  If it takes any longer then it becomes something you are less likely to do.  Don’t get slowed down by the actions required.  Just focus on the basic sorting.

The only action that is required immediately is tossing what you don’t strictly need.  Consider it a golden opportunity to make your life easier!

Late February brought the arrival of a sad old peace lily plant in our front foyer from our condo neighbors across the way.  That’s it in the left hand photo.  There was an unspoken understanding that everyone would take care of it.  Naturally, no one did.

I don’t think much of unspoken understandings so eventually I decided that I was going to be the caretaker of this poor old plant.  As you can see, it was pretty far gone.  I needed to take drastic measures to save it, so I did something I am pretty good at.  I de-cluttered.

With a plant, of course, it’s called pruning, but I think it is a very similar principal to de-cluttering.  Pruning and de-cluttering are both about removing the excess to promote healthy growth.

In the right hand photo you can see the result.  Limp dull brown leaves have given way to vibrant shiny leaves and fresh  lilies.  I cut away all but four of the original leaves, which you can still see.  Notice how much they have benefited from having space to grow.

I have been in households that are every bit as cluttered as the first plant photo.  By removing the trash and excess clutter, we can allow these homes to breathe new life, in much the same way I allowed this plant to breathe new life, by removing the dead and excess leaves.  Excess leaves block light and drain water from new growth.  Clutter drains space, time, energy and other limited resources.

Sometimes it’s difficult to let go of something that’s no longer serving you well (especially if you spent a lot of money on it), but it helps if you look at what you are gaining.  Even though space, time, and energy are not visible gains, I think the plant photo on the right does a pretty good job of illustrating their benefits.

A regular de-cluttering is as important to a healthy household as a regular pruning is to a healthy plant.  It’s only natural.

To be honest, I was in no mood to go because I had just finished a day of physically and mentally draining work and I just wanted to relax, but I had made a promise to my wife.  I needed the event to be easy and relaxing.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was both.

I have experienced far too many events that have “done me bold and saucy wrongs.”  They are intended to be fun and relaxing, but just aren’t.  The culprit: disorganization.  Mostly it’s about the need to establish simple boundaries.

Our theater was an open field, which could have meant open chaos.  Instead, simple paths were mapped out with secured rope.  There was a well-marked section in front for people with blankets, a well-marked section behind that for people with low chairs, and the same in the back for people with full-sized chairs.  If there was any question about whether a chair was blocking someone’s view, there were actually attendees with yardsticks to monitor the situation.  As a result EVERYBODY could enjoy the performance.

What strikes me is that it doesn’t take much to make a potentially chaotic situation into a pleasant one.   Take, for example, ordering food from a deli.  The simple take-a-number system means that people can relax while they are waiting, because there can be no dispute over who was there first.

Beside the well-sectioned audience, there was plenty of garbage cans that were well delineated between recycling and regular trash.   And miracle of miracles people didn’t feel the need to litter!

I thought there was still a pretty good possibility the lovely evening would be spoiled in a traffic jam out of the parking lot, but no.  There were policemen directing traffic and we were on our way home within just a few minutes.  Smooth as silk!

We’ve got Macbeth this week in Stamford.  I’m not sure if it’s indoors or outdoors.  If it’s anything like our Greenwich experience, I’ll look forward to it either way.

That’s right.  I said organizing TOOL.  As with all tools, a work surface performs best when it is used with the right purpose. Storing junky tchotchkes on your work surface is like using a hammer to saw a plank.  So what does your work surface need to be dedicated to? PROCESSING PAPERWORK.

To understand why this is so important, compare your office to your computer’s hard drive.  A computer uses thousands of megabytes on applications and documents, but it must reserve a certain amount of random access memory for PROCESSING data or it will get overwhelmed and crash.  If you run out of work surface to process paperwork, then YOU will be overwhelmed and crash!

Now, perhaps you’re saying “Yeah, but I need everything out where I can see it!” I agree that if you need to make a point of acting on something, it must be visible.  The trouble is, if everything is important then nothing is important.  To give your to-do’s the best odds of getting to DONE, they need to be visible, vertical, and minimal. There are ways to achieve this focus that preserves your work surface.

And I know it’s not all paper that ends up on your work surface.  To really free up all the processing surface you need to stay in control, it’s best to start from scratch and target your office. You will encounter some items that don’t seem to belong anywhere, but ultimately every item has a category.

There’s a joke that goes something like this.  If a cluttered desk represents a cluttered mind, what does an empty desk represent? I guess it’s a very western belief that “open” equals “empty” or “barren.”  The ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui is framed around the belief that there is energy (chi) in everything and that it flows more freely in open spaces.  At this moment as I write, my desk is completely clear and I and I feel this energy.  I’m am completely focused, calm, and awake.  There’s nothing “empty” about it.  There is power in the openness.

Make no mistake, I clutter up my desk many times throughout the day.   Your work surface exists to be worked on.  That’s the whole point, but at the end of the work day, be sure everything you’re working on has a reliable home.  When you begin the next day with a clear work surface, you begin the day empowered.

Collected in piles or bundles, business cards tend to take up residence, but broken up into simple categories they become more useable.  If they’re not useable, why keep them at all?

I’m not a fan of the Rolodex for three reasons:
1. No matter how large, the Rolodex is rarely an adequate size for all your business cards.
2. The Rolodex sorts alphabetically, which can often be confusing in finding a card.  Do you sort by personal name, company name, or profession?
3. The Rolodex takes up too much valuable surface area.

I recommend a 1-1/2 inch binder with business card pages.  I emphasize 1-1/2 inches because more than that becomes clumsy and un-useable.  Again, if it’s not useable, why keep it?

Label each page a category.  This does two things. It provides room to grow for resource you may want more of and it sets a limit on items within a category.  Can you really use more than 20 lawyers?
Here are some categories I have found in almost every household:
doctors, health, lawyers, finance, insurance, contractors, home services,
real estate, restaurants, shopping, and assorted services.

Here are some additional categories I find with typical businesses:
Business services, computers, marketing/public relations, and graphic designers/photographers.

The answer to where you should keep something always lies in the question WHY you are keeping something.  Business cards are no exception.  Here then are some less obvious categories:  odd services (fits no category), people I know (people whose services you have no intention of using, but you know personally), my cards (a professional history of your different business cards), and blank cards (ready to fill out for contacts without business cards.)

One thing I hear a lot is “I just need to find the time to scan them all, then I can throw them all away.” I have yet to meet the person who has all their business cards scanned and in their data base, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong this goal.  In the meantime, however, my binder plan would put you way ahead on this goal, quickly and easily.

Finally, there are just some cards you use more than ever.  Again the question of WHERE you keep them comes back to WHY you keep them.  A clear shoebox sized box will do for the back up supply and for a handy assortment of your favorites, again keep them in a business card pages.  I like to keep these pages inside a large clear envelope inside my work bag, so I always have them when I need to refer my favorite services.

Dedicated Zones

Any room is much easier to keep organized when it has clearly dedicated zones, but in a bathroom, these dedicated zones are defined by rigid structures.  The tub, toilet, and sink all have very specific uses, which you would never consider tampering with.  Also, they provide very limited areas for piling clutter.

Limited storage

Except for maybe some small shelves and a shallow medicine cabinet, the biggest storage area is usually under the sink or maybe a small closet.  In a typical bathroom there is a natural delineation between what I call the showroom and the stockroom.  The less stuff you have cluttering your surfaces, the easier it is to get things done.  I compare these open areas to an uncluttered attractive showroom floor of a clothes shop.   The large area under the sink or in the closet is the stockroom, where you store back up inventory.  You only need to keep a limited number of samples on the showroom floor.

Circulation

With the exception of a relaxing bath, we don’t like to spend too much time in the bathroom, which means we don’t have the same time to settle in and accumulate things like books, mail, drinks, coasters, or snacks, that we might collect in a living room or den.  We circulate in and out like the water circulates through the pipes.  Circulation prevents accumulation.

Strictly adhering to dedicated zones, limiting your showroom samples, and circulating items freely will keep you as organized in other rooms in your house as you are in your bathroom.

How well do you think a team would succeed if their strategy was to collect balls on the sidelines? Their chances of winning would be even worse than North Korea’s (5% according to the Daily News).   An essential step to achieving YOUR goals is to be sure you at least keep the ball in play.

That may sound so obvious that it doesn’t bear saying, but here’s the point.  Good organizing is about having the ability to circulate the items you need to the goals you want.  All too often we are satisfied with storage that simply makes room for the stuff we have, but does nothing to keep these items findable and useable.

If there’s no expectation for an item to be AT LEAST findable then there’s no point in keeping it.  Even archive files need to be “in play,” on some level.  Sure they can sit for 7 years or so, but at some point, most of them need an exit strategy.  Think of it as a 7 year plan to get them to their goal.

Just as a soccer ball needs to advance down the field in a series of stages before it arrives at it’s goal, items in your home need to advance in a series of stages before arriving at their final goal.  Otherwise they accumulate in piles of clutter.

It’s particularly important to keep perishable items like food and batteries “in play” or you’re just throwing money away.  Again, it’s not about using everything you have as soon as you purchase it, it’s about keeping the ball in play and advancing it towards your goal.  Are you keeping the extra mustard in the cabinet where you can see it? Can you see how many you have?  Can you see that you’ve got more than you can eat before the newest one expires?

The difference between the soccer field and your household, of course, is that you are not facing an opposing team.  The only obstacles that come up as you advance items down the field to your goal is time, other priorities, and the habit of hiding items away so they’re not in play.  Tackle that last obstacle for good.

Keepsakes

First and foremost, admit that this is a major category.  I see it in EVERY home we work in.  These are sentimental items that bring back special memories, but you have no intention of actually using or displaying. If they’re worth keeping, they’re worth keeping well.  Clear plastic boxes or drawers are the most user-friendly, but if you require 30 of them, they can get quite expensive, so do a focused sort and purge first.

Old files

I get it.  You need to keep these, just in case, but their location in your attic, basement, or closet should be as remote as the likelihood of retrieving them.

Luggage

Luggage can take up a lot of room so it often ends up in the basement or attic.  This makes sense, but reserve a spot near the entrance, especially if you travel several times a year.

Holiday/Seasonal

Holiday and other seasonal items belong somewhere between the old files and the luggage.  Don’t bury them too deeply, as their storage and retrieval may be required up to 6 times a year or so.

Kid’s stuff

Kid’s stuff is an all too general category, which I hear all too often. It requires some subcategorizing to organize in a user-friendly fashion.
1. The first subcategory is kid’s schoolwork and artwork. This can represent a huge amount of stuff.  I discuss how to control it in my children’s artwork post.

2. Next is the someday toys and equipment.  To me the idea of keeping old stuffed animals, Lego sets, bored games (misspelling intentional), baby cribs, and strollers for 20-30 years in the unlikely event that they will be genuinely appreciated, at the expense of some valuable storage space doesn’t make sense, but I’m not a mom, so I can accept that I “just don’t get it.”  I would, however, suggest stowing this stuff very remotely, perhaps under the attic eaves, behind the boxes of old files.

3. Finally, there’s outgrown clothes.  The key to sorting these out is to get clear on WHY you are keeping them, because odds are good there are several different reasons.  If they’re for the next baby be sure to keep them in moisture resistant boxes, clearly labeled by size. If they’re handmade or special in any other way, without the intention of being used, store them with the other keepsakes.  If your kids can’t wear them and you just can’t stand to waste them, then don’t.  Make a donation.

Donations

Speaking of donations, I recommend collecting these in your garage or near your home’s exit.  The closer to the exit your donations are, the better your odds are of actually donating them.

For tips on how to get the most out of your closet space, check out my series on closet storage.  For more on attics, check out Attic Attack.