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…
Read more →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…
Read more →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…
Read more →For most of the years I spent in Corporate America before starting my organizing business, I worked in Information Technology. One of my favorite managers from that time taught me an important lesson: when you automate a mess, it’s still a mess. I think it’s easy for people to look at boxes and bags of old photos and negatives and realize that they have an organizing project on their hands. But what about the thousands of photos that are on…
Read more →You get too many e-mails. I may not even know you, and even if I know you, I may never have seen your inbox. It doesn’t matter, I still know. That’s because we all get too many e-mails. You may have signed up for newsletters that you were really interested in reading but never have time for. You may have neglected to click the checkbox next to “Send me marketing messages and offers” when you bought something online. Or you…
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