I know what you’re thinking. “Really? Those nasty little notes that litter my husband’s computer monitor and desk?” No worries. I don’t like that look either and I don’t like what it represents: inaction. What I do like, no, LOVE about the mini Post-Its is when they are used well. They are used best when they facilitate flexibility.
You know those magazine articles or online features that offer “Great Organizing Tips!”? They almost always include a tip that says something to the effect of: "Spend just 10 minutes throwing out unwanted items." Often they advise to “just start with the junk drawer!” A ten minute purge can be very unsatisfying without three key guidelines. So the secret to the 10 minute purge is actually 3 secrets:
This is my third scanner review and for a very good reason. People hate paper! If I had a dollar for every time a client asked about ditching the paper and scanning everything, I would have about $34. (I’m not prone to hyperbole.)
As I’ve so often stated, my central organizing philosophy is circulation prevents accumulation, but what exactly do I mean by this? Effective organizing solutions must be built on movement. There must be a reliable advancement from one manageable stage to the next. If this circulation is blocked by an unmanageable stage, the whole process starts to fall apart and an accumulation of clutter is inevitable.
Sometimes when we are sorting and purging our client’s stuff, we come across some bags of papers and the client will tell us “I’ve gotta go through those myself.” I’ve challenged this argument so many times, I thought I’d blog about it. What follows are the reasons for their argument and why they don’t hold water.
Today I want to boldly confront one of the most controversial issues of our time: file folder color choice. I know there is a school of thought, that says if your file folders are a variety of stimulating colors, they will encourage more use, but I want to make a case for the classic manila folder. There are reasons why it works.
Beware the inbox. On the face of it, an inbox makes sense. It provides a single collection place for your unsorted items. The problem is that you gain a false sense of organization, because while there is an easy plan for entrance, there is no easy plan for exit. The best solution may be no inbox at all.
Just got back from a two week vacation, but I haven’t taken a vacation from thoughts on organizing. Here are a few organizing tips that can make your travels easier. Traveling light means choosing right. With the airlines charging for extra luggage checks these days, traveling light makes more sense than ever. To get everything into one bag, you have to make some really tough choices. For instance,
Clients, who are frustrated by all their paper, often ask me “What about scanning it all and going paperless?” I usually recommend “Let’s learn to walk before we can run.” Why waste time and money scanning in the paper that is worthless? I have never made the jump to 100% paperless myself, but recently I discovered I knew someone who has. I’m always learning surprising facts about my manager, Marlie Reid. One of those facts is that Marlie is 100% paperless.
The other day I rushed home from work and jumped straight on the computer. My wife walked by my office and said “Take off your coat and stay a while!” You might wonder what this fascinating story has to do with organizing. A while back I wrote a post called “Envel-nope”, about why un-shed envelopes have no place in the home.
The key to preventing an accumulation of mail is to do a FAST sort into simple categories, as soon as it comes in. Two of those simple categories are READ and REVIEW. So what’s the difference? Read. “Read” is for items you need or want to take your time with. It’s really important that when you are sorting your daily mail, you don’t stop and read a magazine or letter.
It’s all too common to think of a file cabinet as a place to make paper go away. It’s not. It should be a safe place to store files where they can be FOUND reliably. Don’t put things you want to make a point of acting on in your file drawer. They will be out of sight out of mind. Instead, they need to be out where they are more compelling.
This isn’t the first time I have attacked a familiar office convention. There was the accordion file, the spiral notebook, and the rubberband.Today, I take issue with the apparently harmless paper clip. Let me start by saying I do use paper clips myself. I believe they have their place. It’s just that I find they are grossly over-used.
To get organized the word “important” needs to be used carefully. If “important” is used too much then there is no distinction and the most important stuff can get buried in the less important stuff. Put another way, if everything is important then nothing is important. If “important” is used too little then important is seen as a small category unto itself.
Are you flooded with paper in your home? BIG paper challenges require BIG steps. An easy way to be as aggressive with your paper flood as it is with you, is to start by sorting shapes. The biggest deterrent to dealing with paper is making decisions. The vast majority of these decisions are easy, but we tend to tie them to the minority of difficult ones. The best approach, therefore, is to take the majority of easy decisions out of the way first. Here’s how.
There is a time to sort-and-purge clutter and a time to act on your to-do’s. It’s counter-productive to mix the sorting with the acting. To truly understand why these two things are incompatible, it is first important to recognize the difference between getting organized and staying organized. It’s not unlike the difference between cooking a meal and eating it. It just works better to eat a meal after it is fully cooked
Professional Organizer Matt Baier and his team declutter and organize homes and offices in Stamford, New Canaan, Greenwich, Westport, Darien, Norwalk, Fairfield, Westchester County, and New York City.
Matt Baier Organizing, LLC
Professional organizer • Stamford, Connecticut
14 Forest Lawn Ave. #B6, Stamford, CT 06905
Phone: (203) 253-8414 • Email: matt@mattbaier.com
Home Organizing Greenwich CT, Darien CT, New Canaan CT, Stamford CT & Westchester County NY
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