Electronic Clutter | Organizing Goddess

You Have Too Many Cables

The type of work I do with clients tends to come in waves. Recently, I’ve helped several clients organize their drawers full of cables that were not in use. I’ve written about cables before, most notably in No More Mystery Cables and Got New Electronics? The cable situation has gotten even more complicated with the emergence of the USB-C connector. There were already too many cable options; now there is a dizzying array. Let’s cut to the bottom line. You have…

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Too Many Tabs

There is a great internet meme that has been floating around for a while: “My mind is like an internet browser. 17 tabs are open, 4 of them are frozen, and I don’t know where the music is coming from.” I think of this meme whenever I am working with a client who has a lot of tabs open. These clients may also have multiple Word documents or Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations open and unsaved. They are also likely…

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The Hell of a New Computer

I got a new computer last week. Thank heaven I am organized and somewhat computer savvy, or I never would have survived. I’m still not sure I will survive. Switching to a new computer is like moving house. You know it will be great once it’s over, but going through it is very stressful. Things that you did every day without even thinking now require effort. You’re not sure where to find your stuff. Some things are improved but some…

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Keeping Electronic Files and Folders in Order

Those of you who, like me, came of age just when personal computers came on the market will remember when file names were limited to eight characters. For example, you might give a list of charitable expenses for last year’s tax return a name like “CHARXP22”. It could be challenging to make sense of these names when you looked at them months or years later. Happily, those limitations are long gone. We can have much longer names and we can…

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The iPhone Graveyard

Ten years ago, I wrote a blog post called The Computer Graveyard in which I describe the phenomenon of getting a new computer but not being ready to get rid of the old one. So the old one sits on the floor until you get another new computer, and then the one you’ve been using goes on the floor next to the older one, and . . . well, you get the idea. Now that smart phones have become so…

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