I have previously written about how to greatly reduce your pile of snail mail by opening the envelopes, removing the fluff, and unfolding the important papers. (See Honey, I Shrunk the Mail.) In that organizing tip, I coined the term “paper thickness”. A single piece of paper is one paper thickness. A piece of paper folded in thirds, such as when inserted into a business envelope, is three paper thicknesses – three times as thick as when it is unfolded. An envelope is two…
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I didn’t always own a file cabinet. During my 25-year business career, I always had multiple file cabinets in my office, but I never even considered owning one at home. I viewed file cabinets as clunky metal things that didn’t fit into any type of home décor. A few years before I left Corporate America , my supervisor worked with an efficiency expert who got all her papers in order. She was so impressed that she authorized all of her direct…
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Lots of times we hold on to something “just in case”. We may not have a use for it now, but we can imagine it coming in handy at some point in the future. While this is not a bad plan, it gets out of control when we use that excuse to hold on to too many things, or things that are big and take up a lot of space. I’ve started a new policy of using up my “just…
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I use my shredder frequently, and it works very well. However, when I see the red light indicating that the receptacle is full and needs to be emptied, my heart sinks because I haven’t figured out a way to empty my shredder without making a mess. Emptying my shredder requires me to remove the heavy top which contains the shredding mechanism. That means there are tiny little pieces of cross-cut paper just waiting to fall on the floor when I remove…
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My clients often say to me, “I bet your apartment is always organized”. (Which it is). Some even want to come over and see it. I respond, “You’re welcome to come, but give me at least a five minute warning before dropping by”. Why? Because my apartment is always organized, but it isn’t always neat.
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