02.28.08
Controlling paper clutter
There was an article in our Sunday paper where readers shared with Sara Noel of Frugal Village their tips on how to control paper clutter. While I’m still struggling to figure out which method would work for me, I can tell you which ones won’t (hint: all of them).
Go paperless: this reader scanned paper documents and saved the digital images to a removable hard drive. Bad idea for me: I already have a problem organizing my born digital documents, much less any I would scan in order to eliminate paper from my life.
Box system: this reader put all of their paperwork into a box and at the end of the month, went through the box and paid bills, sent birthday cards, etc.
Bad idea for me: I’d never go through the box and bills would go unpaid. I already have a hard enough time sending birthday cards despite having a whole desk drawer full of them. Maybe I should send them all on Jan. 1st every year.
Immediate action: this reader opens mail next to their filing cabinet.
Bad idea for me: this is way too easy, therefore I don’t do it. Procrastination doesn’t allow it.
Prioritize: this reader pays all bills online and stores things in binders if they think it’s worth the time to punch holes in paper and file it that way.
Bad idea for me: I don’t trust online bill paying (yet) and who has time to punch holes in papers? I just let ‘em pile up. They don’t fit in my overstuffed binders anyway.
Portable file, one for each family member: this reader handles papers only once and files papers in boxes or portable files according to family member.
Bad idea for me: I would need extra large boxes for all the papers I keep that pertain to my kids (oops! already have ‘em and they’re full!) and what fun is it if I can’t pick up the paper several times and never know what to do with it?
Self-discipline: this reader says don’t waste time filing papers you don’t need to save. Besides, it’s probably on the Web if you need it.
Bad idea for me: I don’t have any self-discipline and can’t figure out what to keep or pitch. Besides, I’d probably have to bookmark it on the Web so I can come back to it later. Then I’d have to organize my bookmarks.
Create deadlines: this reader creates boxes with deadlines for catalogs, throwing them out a month after they arrive.
Bad idea for me: who has so much free time they can track the age of their mail-order catalogs? I wait until there’s a huge pile and the year on them doesn’t match the current year in which I’m living, then I pitch them.
P.S. I recently found out I have a moderate case of AD/HD, so I’m going to have to work twice as hard as the next gal to stay on top of projects, mail, email, paperwork, and everything else. Wish me luck. If anyone with AD/HD has practical, useful advice, please share it. 
02.26.08
Old papers
I tried in vain today to file a piece of paper in one of my hanging files located at the back of my lateral file drawer. All the hanging files in front of it were so stuffed I couldn’t slide the file forward, much less squeeze in one skinny piece of paper. I decided to temporarily remove 3 very fat hanging files in order to reach the file at the back. I quickly leafed through it, purging some of the contents and sending them to the recycle bin. What a small triumph to let go of old stuff I didn’t need, much less know I had!
Hmmm… What if I spent a little time each day (or week– let’s not get too excited here) going through each file folder doing the same thing? Could I free up needed space for future papers and project folders? It’s worth a try. I’m desperate. The piles and files aren’t getting smaller on their own and the clutter, both visible and in drawers, is getting on my last nerve.
02.25.08
White space?
I accidentally uncovered white space on my desk today– lots of it. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I know I liked how it looked and felt to have so much empty space. As I’ve said before, it felt oddly peaceful, as though someone had draped a white cloth over everything. I wish my desk looked like this every day.
I think the white space happened because we didn’t get a delivery from our outsourcing vendors, so I was able to take care of some problem books and other projects cluttering up my desktop. I was accumulating too many papers in one of my manila file folders (which was overstuffed and lying on my desk), so I divided it into three folders, each with a different focus on the main topic. Now I just gotta squeeze the three folders into my overstuffed lateral file. Hmmm…. maybe I need to empty out some of the existing folders and create some ‘white space’ there next.
My next project might be filing some of that 6-inch tall pile of inbox stuff sitting on the back counter of my desk. If I file 5 papers per day, how many days will it take to whittle down that pile? Sounds like a complex math problem for someone who quit balancing her checkbook almost two years ago. (Yeah, that got away from me too, so I stopped doing it.) My problem is knowing when to throw away stuff, so it’s all too easy for it to build up and overwhelm me.
02.24.08
To-do lists and GTD
Have you ever felt you heard something on the radio that you were meant to hear, because it came on at just the right time? If you had been in the car at another time of the day or tuned in to a different station, you would have missed something important? This is exactly what happened the other day when I heard a story on NPR.
The story was about to-do lists and GTD (Getting Things Done). David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and of the website with the same name, Getting Things Done, recommended using Post-It notes to write down ideas and thoughts that run through your mind (check– I do that already with scraps of paper– not sure it makes me more organized). Doing this, he claimed, freed up your mind to continue working on whatever was at hand. Since I need to figure out how to organize all those scraps of paper, I think I should read his book. Our library has copies of it, so I’ll have put it to the test. There aren’t too many organizing systems that work for me.
One of the resources mentioned on the NPR page was 43 Foldersby Merlin Mann. This site is based on Mann’s email inbox solution, which contains tips on handling your email inbox, as well as other GTD tips based on Allen’s book. Hmmm…. looks like I need to take some time reading Mann’s tips, since my inbox is flooded with up to 100 emails per day.
I’m still trudging through 4 Weeks to an Organized Life with AD/HDby Jeffrey Freed and Joan Shapiro. The problem is, I’m too disorganized and distracted to finish the book and will have to surrender it to the library. Once I discovered a glaring typo (a bad find & replace put the letters AD/HD into the word ‘addition’ in several places throughout the book), I had a hard time continuing it. Again, there aren’t too many organizing systems that work for me. If I can ever finish this book, it will be interesting to see if it provides any lasting value for me.
02.19.08
Spring is coming
Spring is coming, I’m sure of it. How can I be sure of this when the temperature outside is in the low 30s and another ice storm is forecast for this Thursday?
One: my office faces west and the sun is getting higher in the sky. I know this because my desk also faces west and I’m blinded by the sun’s brilliance as it shines through my west-facing window, directly into my eyes as I sit at my computer. I have blinds on the windows, but they are fabric and aren’t terribly opaque. So from 3-4:30 pm CST I contort into weird positions to the left or right of the wall and window frame, desperately trying to hide from the sun. I’ve tried hats and sunglasses, but seriously, it just makes me look like a dork. Any time a cloud obscures the sun, even for a moment, I whisper “Blessed clouds.” And to think I dreamt of this sun-drenched office for several years while this library was being built. Only now do I understand the quote: “Watch what you wish for; you may get it.”
Two: today the landscape company was in the cafe garden, just below my windows, giving the liriopetheir spring haircut. The workers fired up their trimmer 15 minutes before I was scheduled to participate in a conference call in my office. They carried on with their trimming for two hours (we have lots of liriope plants in the garden). Thankfully, the people on the other end of the line couldn’t hear the droning buzz of the trimmer.
Speaking of spring, I’m reminded of doing some ’spring cleaning’ every time I get into my hanging file drawer. Most of my hanging files, when I bother to use them, are stuffed to capacity. I can hardly get another piece of paper in any of them, let alone start a new file folder (like I did today). I know I don’t have to keep all that old stuff, but as soon as I throw it away… somebody will ask for it.
02.18.08
Almost got caught up
I was going to take my 4-Runner to get the oil changed and tires rotated this morning, but I decided I’d rather go into work early– I had so much catching up to do. I clocked in at 7:30 am and before I knew it, it was 5:30 pm. Another hour and I might have finished checking that last truck of vendor cataloging. But I figured I’d better head home, before my family wondered what happened to me.
It’s so nice to be in the office in the early morning, when most everyone else hasn’t arrived and in the evening, after they’ve left for the day. I can focus better when the phone isn’t ringing, people aren’t walking into my office, and emails aren’t popping into my inbox every few seconds. It’s kind of like I have the whole office to myself.
I almost got caught up today–well, sort of. I thought I was going to load files of vendor records and get them all taken care of, since they always arrive in my inbox at inopportune times, like when I’m in the middle of a project or away from my desk.
I work with files from at least 4-5 vendors. Each file from each vendor requires different access methods (even if they are all FTP), different authorizations and passwords, and different processes that must be done to the records after they’re loaded. Trusting all of this to my memory only causes me to balk at loading them, since it’s all too easy to forget the details associated with each one. So I’ve created record retrieval and loading instructions for each one and a corresponding folder for instructions and the printouts that result from the record loads. But no matter how well I plan my time to load them, there’s always something that doesn’t work out.
Today, for example, I got caught up on loading my daily files of corrected bibliographic records from Marcive. Feeling good about clearing up that mini-backlog, I thought I’d load the files from EBSCO, since that email notification had been hanging around the longest. But when I preprocessed the file before loading it, I saw there were way too many records in it for a monthly update. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the file contained a mix of added, changed, and deleted MARC records. In the past, each of these types of records were sent to me as separate files. I was unable to load the file and had to send EBSCO an email to try to resolve it. By then, it was nearly 10 am and I still had 6 trucks of vendor and staff cataloging to review. So much for getting ahead. Loading additional vendor files would have to wait until the next day.
Another area I almost got caught up was my vendor feedback. I let this pile up too, because sometimes I feel it’s easier to quickly check as many books as possible (especially when they have holds) and move them on to messenger service. I make notes on problems, then come back to my notes later and email the vendors. But there’s always a reason I don’t have time to compile the feedback and the pile of printouts grows and grows. The bigger it gets, the more time I know it will take to write up all that feedback. I realize I should write up the feedback as I find problems, but sometimes that takes so long it delays getting the truck across the room. No right way to do it, I suppose….
02.14.08
I need a clone
I need a clone. I think that for each day I’m out of the office, my workload doubles. I have so many trucks of vendor cataloging to review that I’m going to have to pass much of it through without looking at it. I know I’m supposed to be evaluating the quality of their cataloging and processing, but when I have 9 trucks of stuff to check, somethin’s gotta give. It’s either my sanity or those books– and I’m planning on keeping my sanity. If I had a clone, she’d split the checking with me, or even take it over entirely, handling problems when she finds them.
Email isn’t any better– it floods my inbox to the point that I lose emails, something I thought happened only to disorganized people– (Oops! that might be me!). I’m trying to do things like color-code email from certain people, like my boss. Email from him is in red text– talk about getting my attention– that does it! I also use colored flags in Outlook to quickly mark and find special emails that I need to act on, regardless of who sent them. If I had a clone, she would be assigned the job of reading all my emails and giving me a summary of what’s really important.
The piles of problems still sit on my desk and some days, they just have to sit there and grow bigger. I have to get tired of looking at them to really act on them. I know that’s not the best way to deal with problems, but some days, it’s the best I can do. There’s always something more urgent that comes up and isn’t on the to-do list. That’s when I decide whether or not I should delegate it, back-burner it, or do it myself. Kind of like plunging into cold water and getting it over with all at once, rather than getting wet one inch of skin at a time and slowly freezing to the bone. If I had a clone, she would handle all the problems, deciding when to delegate them or do them herself.
If I had a clone…we could accomplish so much together…
02.11.08
Little pieces of paper
One of the things I’m good at producing is dozens of scraps of paper with lists of things I need to do. You’d think with all the electronic organizers and to-do lists I have access to I’d have found a better way by now, but that’s not the case. Somehow paper seems to work better for me– at least for the moment. I have to find a way to capture random thoughts racing through my head: current projects, people I need to contact, files I need to load.
Last week, after filling up 4 new scraps of paper (front and back!) with to-do lists, I decided to go through a collection of those paper scraps in my desk drawer. I wanted to see if any were aged enough to be thrown away. Surprisingly, some were. I threw away several and was amazed at how feelings of relief replaced those paper scraps.
The thing that scares me most about creating too many little scraps of paper is that it reminds me of my grandmother when her mind started slipping. We would visit her and find scraps of paper with nonsensical stuff written on them. None of us could decipher any of the words, but they made sense to Grandma when she wrote them. She was obviously capturing her random thoughts just like I do. Unfortunately, they were outward signs of the inward deterioration of her mind. I hope my scraps of paper continue to have meaningful scribbles on them now and in the future.
02.07.08
Bottle or burn that energy?
When I arrived at work this morning, I had an inexplicable supply of extra energy. I don’t know if I got more sleep last night (I know it wasn’t near enough, but it was more than any night this week) or if I knew my packed schedule required a certain mental framework that would to provide me with the necessary energy to survive the day. At any rate, I felt as though I was ready to jump out of my skin with nervous energy– all day long. It’s days like this where I need some sort of physical exercise to burn off excess energy (and calories!).
I think the source of my extra energy is due to my decision the previous night to give up my spot on the Wellness Team. I’ve been on the committee long enough and I should have given it up last fall, when I started a new, permanent committee. Packrat that I am, though, I find myself collecting books, papers, emails, blogs– and even committees. It was one of four EVPL committees to which I belonged and the least essential to my role within the library. And I can’t forget that outside of the library, I belong to another five committees or advisory groups. I’m amazed at how much freedom and energy I gained by letting go of just one committee.
02.06.08
Maxed out
I’m not going to brag and say I get more emails than anybody I know, because there’s somebody out there who likely gets more than I do. But I probably have a harder time than most folks with getting through all of them each day. Reading, replying, or forwarding them to others seems to take up hours of my time, if I let it. Sorting them according to whether or not they’ve been read only adds to my dismay when I see how many fall into that category. Sorting by other groupings, like subject, author, or size turns up all sorts of interesting emails that are otherwise lost in the daily flood.
When I can’t read emails from discussion lists, I scan their subject lines, sort them by subject, then drag and drop them into folders on my hard drive, where they can live relatively undisturbed forever. I have good intentions to read them someday, but usually never do. Deleting them isn’t the answer. I can’t delete them for fear I will miss some nugget of wisdom or a byte of information I could have found useful. We packrats keep everything, from piles of physical papers to files of digital junk.
Subscribing to and reading blogs is another thing I struggle to keep up with. If I’m not tuned in to blogs and emails, I would miss out on what’s going on and what’s upcoming in my profession. I subscribe to 64 blogs and I thought that was a lot. Then I heard Stephen Abrams say he reads 650 blogs and just lets the information wash over him. I think I would drown.
I’m thinking of cutting back on my non-essential committee involvements at EVPL. I’ve simply got to find more time to get my work done during work hours and let others serve in my place. I’ve been on the Wellness Team long enough that it’s time I step down and let someone else take my place. They need branch representation and I need to get more work done. I think that being at work (unplanned) until 5:50 pm today (and most other days) made me realize it was time to let go of something.
