Episode Transcript
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0:11
Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Laura
0:14
Owens. And I'm Jan Black. Have
0:16
you ever felt overwhelmed by the
0:18
amount of paper you've accumulated? Have
0:20
catalogs, magazines, and tech records taken
0:22
over more space than you'd like?
0:24
Are you at a loss to decide
0:26
how you'll ever conquer the paper
0:28
clutter around you? Well, if so, you'll
0:31
want to hear what our guest,
0:33
professional organizer Lisa Woodruff has to
0:35
say. Lisa's the author of several books
0:37
on organization, including the latest, The
0:39
Paper Solution, What to Shred, What
0:41
to Save, and How to Stop It from
0:44
Taking Over Your Life. Lisa, thank you so
0:46
much for joining us. Thank
0:48
you so much for having me. You
0:50
say the number one daily organizational challenge for
0:52
people is getting and keeping a handle on
0:54
the paper in their lives. Why do you
0:57
say that? You know, you think it's not.
0:59
You think that your paper lists and your
1:01
paper piles really don't matter that much. It's
1:03
just a little bit of mail here or
1:05
a note or two there or your to-do
1:07
list. But if you start
1:10
to really observe your life, paper
1:12
is everywhere. And where's
1:15
that paper? Where did I put that? Where
1:17
did I write that down? Did I mail
1:19
that bill? Where's the invitation for the party
1:21
we're supposed to go to? And you'll find
1:23
that your life is very paper based and
1:25
you're spending a lot of time trying to
1:27
find information, trying to corral information,
1:29
trying to get things done, and you never
1:31
get to the bottom of your paper pile.
1:34
When we first learned we were going to have
1:36
you on, I thought to myself, how is she
1:38
so interested in paper? Like what sparked this? And
1:40
there's a really interesting story. So tell us that.
1:43
Yes. So about 10 years ago, my father
1:46
fell ill and my sister and I were
1:48
his power of health care and power of
1:50
attorney and ultimately had to settle the estate
1:52
and sell our family home. And we found
1:54
that we were dealing with so
1:56
many emotional and family issues and planning funerals in
1:59
all of our communities. that, but there was
2:01
so much paper. Like because I was four hours
2:03
away, whenever I would end up at the hospital,
2:05
you know, every couple of weeks, they would give
2:07
me all of these numbers that were supposedly in
2:09
the range of normal, but I was like, well,
2:11
what was the number yesterday? What is the number
2:14
we're trying to get to? And how low does
2:16
this number get before you give them a blood
2:18
transfusion? And so we started writing all of this
2:20
down and it wasn't until we created a binder
2:22
where we could write all of the information down
2:25
and pass it back and forth so that
2:27
we would have those numbers. We
2:29
had a better picture of dad's health. And
2:31
then I brought all the paperwork home
2:33
to Cincinnati. I grew up in the
2:35
Akron Cleveland area to settle the estate,
2:37
which took me nine months. And I
2:39
scoured everywhere, Amazon, blogs,
2:42
podcasts, everywhere. Like where is the checklist? Where
2:44
is the guide for how to take care
2:46
of somebody who's sick or settle in a
2:48
state? And there was no checklist.
2:51
Like so I
2:53
just had to go through all the paper and
2:55
ask lawyers and I would meet with lawyers as
2:57
a professional organizer for other clients. And I would
2:59
say, well, this check didn't get cleared or you
3:02
didn't know about this bank account. And they would
3:04
say, well, she didn't tell me. And I
3:06
said, well, how is she supposed to know
3:08
what to tell you? And they said, we
3:10
don't know. We can't see what's in your
3:12
filing cabinet. And I realized that lawyers were
3:14
frustrated. People were like, everybody's frustrated with knowing
3:16
that we need this paper, but we don't
3:18
know what paper we need and when we
3:21
need it. And whenever we need it, we're
3:23
in a very emotionally charged situation where we
3:25
aren't thinking as clearly as we normally would
3:27
be. And you're almost
3:29
sabotaging yourself because I mean, I've been in
3:31
that situation before where I'm panicked in terms
3:33
of trying to find a particular piece of
3:35
paper. And I know in the back of
3:37
my mind that I'm not thinking clearly, I'm
3:39
not going to the logical place where it
3:42
would be because I'm just getting overwhelmed.
3:45
And you'd rather be with your loved one, right?
3:47
Right. You'd rather be spending the last years of
3:49
your dad's life or days of his life with
3:51
him, not Trying to find a
3:53
piece of paper for a lawyer Or sitting
3:55
with your family in your family home, recounting
3:58
stories, not downstairs in the filing cabinet. Trying
4:00
to find a peepers you need for the layer
4:02
tomorrow? What? everybody else is getting to celebrate? Your
4:04
dad's voice. You talk about
4:06
how it plays a role in depression and
4:09
anxiety and I feel like in your situation.
4:11
It would just get so frustrated. There would have to
4:13
be a level. Of anxiety that would go
4:15
from okay. I'm anxious about. Going through
4:17
these papers to just anxiety in general
4:20
over other things, I mean it has.
4:22
To play some sort of a role in mental health. Definitely
4:25
because whenever you have these huge
4:27
life events divorces, death, weddings, births,
4:29
moving, nothing else stopped like your
4:31
job. nonstop. If your parents that
4:33
doesn't stop and and so you
4:35
end up taking it from sleep,
4:37
you end up to get from
4:40
any kind of self care personal
4:42
time that you have at so
4:44
you're You're not. You're. Not
4:46
sleeping enough, you're not replenishing yourself in
4:48
any way, shape or form because you're
4:50
trying to meet all the expectations you
4:53
had before this event in during this
4:55
event is it's just extremely stressful in
4:57
general. What advice would you have for
4:59
people who are coping with an illness
5:02
in the family? Whether it's their own
5:04
illness or the illness of a loved
5:06
one in terms of dealing with the
5:08
paper that. Is. Is inevitably
5:11
involved in that. Yeah.
5:13
For illness there two things. Number one. write
5:15
down all the symptoms, all the medications as
5:17
you start to like to Stephen Journal it
5:19
at the end of the day or somebody
5:21
is a caretaker like you know what and
5:23
is still for my daughter. I would notice
5:25
that she would have different symptoms. comes just
5:27
like. Her. Verb tenses would change
5:30
when her mood altered state would change
5:32
until I started observing. There were different
5:34
symptoms that she would have. They're not
5:37
scientific symptoms, but just like mannerisms or
5:39
he had oddities that she would do
5:41
that would suit me that she was
5:43
getting ready to need to be hospitalized.
5:46
So as a caregiver, you observe things
5:48
that are not medically relevant for doctors
5:50
but really help you with how people
5:52
are feeling. I remember when the kids
5:55
were little like in a sad, really
5:57
high fevers. The pediatrician. would always say how
5:59
are they acting? Like are they up and running around?
6:01
I don't care if it's 103 fever, the child's probably
6:04
fine, but if it's a 100 degree fever and
6:06
they're lethargic and they're on the couch, I want
6:08
you to bring them in immediately. So even these
6:11
daily symptoms, write those down. You will
6:14
notice things that are unique to each
6:16
person and how sick
6:18
or well they are based just on what
6:21
they're doing versus what they are telling you.
6:23
And then the second is to put all
6:25
of the medical bills that are coming in
6:27
in one box or one bag and everything
6:29
that comes in related to that is in
6:31
that bag and then just handle it every
6:33
two weeks or every month and just block
6:35
out a huge amount of time, open everything,
6:37
staple them together so that they don't get
6:39
lost until you have things reconciled. It really
6:41
is a full-time job to make sure the
6:43
insurance company is paying for what
6:46
they need to pay for so that you have less to pay on
6:48
your end. I'd love that for
6:51
a solution going forward for our lives,
6:53
but I'm just thinking, so we just
6:55
sold the home that I grew up
6:57
in. We were there for 27 years
7:00
and my mom unfortunately had the task
7:02
of going through the vast
7:04
majority of the papers. It was
7:06
very overwhelming, I think, for my sister, for me,
7:08
for my dad. So she went through most of that
7:10
stuff. And I know it was
7:12
even sentimental to me and for her to
7:15
go through things like our homework when we
7:17
were younger and assignments we turned in that
7:19
we haven't looked at in many, many years,
7:21
in 20 years, but at the same time,
7:23
it's hard to go through those. So what
7:25
would you say for people who are going
7:27
through a similar situation, moving and seeing things
7:30
when they look at the paper and say,
7:32
God, those are some good times or how
7:34
cute it was the kid was this young.
7:36
How can we get over that sentimental hump?
7:39
Yeah, so a couple of things. One, just do
7:41
like three to five files every single night. Like
7:43
grab three to five files, do them as if
7:45
like do the dishes, do the three files, do
7:47
the laundry, like just add it into your regular
7:50
day. And then as you find those sentimental things,
7:52
it sounds like you guys are all together and
7:54
doing this together. Have them put that in a
7:56
bucket so that when you guys are at the
7:58
end of the day, end of the day and
8:00
you've unpacked a bunch of boxes and you've gotten
8:02
the pizza and you're all sitting around go okay
8:04
let's see what funny thing we can find in
8:06
this box and pull it out and enjoy the
8:08
memory like you saved it this long don't just
8:11
pitch it like hold it up and go oh
8:13
my gosh I can't believe that you used to
8:15
draw the arms coming straight out of your head
8:17
as all children do because that's just like a
8:19
way kids are like oh look you did curly
8:21
hair on yours or my
8:23
daughter always had big lips when she was
8:25
drawing her first characters and my son always
8:27
had spiky hair and you have that conversation
8:30
right and you can still get rid of
8:32
the memory after that it's the sharing of
8:34
the memory before you get rid of the
8:36
paper and it'll make it easier for everyone
8:38
to let go of it after you've been able
8:40
to experience that together you
8:42
know one of the organizers that I was working
8:44
with when when we were going through this process also
8:47
said you like it you love
8:49
it take a picture of it you'll all
8:51
you know use your use your phone take
8:53
a picture of it and you'll have it and
8:55
then it'll always be there and
8:57
you'll know where it is and and I thought
8:59
that was a wonderful way of
9:01
dealing with a lot of things even like
9:03
favorite clothes that I had that I hadn't
9:06
worn in 20 years but you know meant
9:08
something to me now but they don't have
9:10
a picture that's true but it was nice
9:12
to be able to just take a picture
9:14
of it and and say goodbye that way
9:16
yeah you
9:19
know you talk about when your father passed
9:21
away that you all of a sudden faced
9:23
this this big personal tsunami
9:25
of papers and you
9:28
had to get rid of things like his
9:30
car catalog collection tell us more
9:32
about what that was like and the
9:34
and the emotions that you encountered going
9:36
through your father's lifetime
9:38
of papers it
9:41
was super difficult because my parents had gotten divorced
9:43
five years prior and while they split the possessions
9:45
in their house they didn't do it amicably so
9:47
they never split the filing cabinet so I not
9:50
only was going through my father's stuff but I
9:52
knew my mother's stuff would be in there as
9:54
well which was that part was
9:56
awkward so if you don't take care of
9:58
you know splitting everything you go through
10:00
a divorce then your children are going
10:03
to have to go through that. But
10:05
also when you look at your paper
10:07
specifically the car catalogs things like that,
10:09
that was my dad's passion project. It
10:11
had no financial ramification for the estate.
10:14
And if you're going to do like a
10:16
triage situation with your paper just you know
10:18
real quickly what would be important for my
10:20
kids or someone else to need and what
10:23
is not as important. Being able to take
10:25
those things that are really paper hobbies and
10:27
putting them in a separate filing cabinet and
10:29
just labeling them and saying you know
10:31
my passion project then if there
10:34
is an instance where somebody needs to come
10:36
in and go through your filing cabinets they
10:38
know that that whole filing cabinet drawer can
10:40
just be shredded or recycled that it doesn't
10:43
have any financial implications on the estate. Yeah
10:45
and I think it's important to mention as well that you
10:48
say that we can save less of what
10:50
we think that we need to without losing
10:52
what's important and that only 15% of our
10:55
paper actually needs to be saved. So I
10:57
think that's something to think about going forward
10:59
like you mentioned trying to separate
11:02
things from okay this is a passion
11:04
project versus something that's important. Not
11:06
everything is important even if we think that it is
11:08
at the time. Yeah
11:11
and my best example to that is manuals.
11:14
We save manuals for everything like even the
11:16
$15 toaster but even like you know $10,000
11:20
water heater or whatever we save all these manuals
11:22
and my question to you is when was the
11:24
last time you went in your filing cabinet got
11:26
out a manual and actually fixed something in your
11:28
house. If you did then save them
11:30
all but myself and all of my friends we call
11:32
a plumber we call an
11:35
electrician and never
11:37
once has that person come in my
11:39
house and said all right well I'll fix your furnace
11:41
but could you please first go get me the man
11:43
never they don't need it why
11:46
are we saving it? You
11:49
know I was surprised to read in
11:51
your book that 23% of people at
11:53
times pay their bills
11:57
late simply because they can't find
11:59
the bill. bill not because
12:01
they don't have the money. What
12:04
kind of a toll does this take? This
12:07
was me 20 years ago. Now, of course,
12:09
this was before I did online banking, but
12:11
even I didn't have my online banking 100%
12:13
digital until six months ago. This
12:15
was me with two babies under the age
12:17
of two running a business from home trying
12:19
to keep it all together. I literally was
12:21
paying my bills like just because I couldn't
12:23
find them and I did not have a
12:26
good system for regularly paying our bills. We
12:28
think that paper-oriented events shouldn't exist
12:30
because we should be paperless. So
12:33
because they shouldn't exist and we
12:35
should be paperless, we don't chunk
12:37
out time in our calendar for them. You
12:40
know you have to do dishes and take a shower
12:42
and do laundry and make your bed or not make
12:44
your bed. Those are all conscious habits that we have.
12:47
But as far as when do you pay
12:49
your bills? When do you reconcile your checkbook
12:51
or your calendar? When do you
12:53
go through your mail each week? Do you have
12:55
a set time that you do that or are
12:58
you just kind of doing it as the mail
13:00
comes in in the nooks and crannies? What ends
13:02
up happening is there's no set time so there's
13:04
no accountability and things flip through the cracks. And
13:07
you end up paying maybe interest rates
13:09
or fees that you otherwise wouldn't be paying.
13:12
Right. While
13:14
I was doing research for this interview, I
13:16
was looking around my apartment and thinking, my
13:18
goodness, this apartment has way too many things
13:20
in it but paper is not really one
13:22
of them. And I'm wondering if this could
13:25
possibly be a generational thing. As
13:27
a millennial, I don't own a printer
13:29
and I don't think I've had one
13:31
for easily five years, maybe even more.
13:34
So is that true of people my age
13:36
that we're going to end up with fewer
13:38
papers when we grow up when I'm my
13:40
mom's age and we're going through files? Is
13:42
it going to be that paper won't be the
13:45
the main thing that we're having to go through?
13:47
And yeah, just talk to us a little bit
13:49
about the generational differences. I think
13:51
it is true. Laura, do you have children? I do
13:53
not. Okay, so when you get
13:55
some of those little blessings, if you choose
13:57
to or if you are so blessed. You
14:00
will have more paper than you know what to do
14:02
with and I find that this is so true for
14:04
almost all millennials I talked to they're like I don't
14:07
even know why you're still dealing with those Lisa paper
14:09
isn't even a thing We are paperless society and then
14:11
they have a baby and they come crying to me
14:13
when that baby is one of you go I am
14:15
rounding in paperwork So I
14:17
do think that if you are a millennial
14:20
and you do not have children and you
14:22
do not own your house You probably could
14:25
be very paper minimalistic but when you own
14:27
a house or you get a baby you're
14:29
gonna be right there with us because These
14:32
are paper worthy events and and the other
14:34
thing is we're never going to be even
14:36
if you're a millennial you're never going to
14:38
be a hundred percent paperless because Just going
14:41
to the DMV to get your compliant
14:43
driver's license to fly in an airplane whenever they
14:45
open that back up again You're going to need
14:47
your Social Security card. You're gonna need your birth
14:50
certificate and you're going to need a paper
14:52
utility bill So
14:54
you're going to have to have paper They're
14:56
just America is built on paper events
14:58
and having to produce paper in different times
15:00
in your life So a lot of us
15:03
have this idea will be paperless and then
15:05
also if you read Marie Kondo's book She
15:08
will say you shouldn't have to
15:10
have any paper that is because in Japan
15:12
their birth certificates are digital They don't
15:14
have paper birth certificates. So
15:16
we have paper birth certificates marriage
15:18
certificates death certificates Tax
15:21
returns we have paper that we have to
15:24
Use and you also say that
15:26
many times I found this fascinating our papers
15:29
represent dreams and ideas Rather
15:32
than useful and profitable pursuits. Tell us
15:34
a little bit more about that Yes,
15:38
so before I was blessed with my
15:40
two bundles of joy through adoption We
15:43
went through infertility and so in my filing
15:45
cabinets I had files of you know, all
15:47
the infertility things we had tried books that
15:49
were related to infertility Medical
15:52
bills related to infertility that we wrote off
15:54
on our taxes or when I went to
15:56
college I got an early childhood degree and
15:58
I had created this corporate daycare center. I
16:00
even had the drawings made out and binders
16:03
related to that. So a lot of the
16:05
things that we've done as projects for school
16:07
or things we've clipped
16:09
out of newspapers or even recipes that you
16:11
will save to try someday, these are all
16:13
things that we want to do in the
16:16
future, but are not necessarily something that is
16:18
actionable that we're doing today or that we
16:20
do on a regular basis. Or
16:22
we'll ever do. Right. You
16:25
know. You
16:27
can always help. I have a lot of those
16:29
recipes that I've never made. Yeah. I was going
16:32
to say, but you know what? Those cookbooks, can
16:34
you ever imagine throwing them out? A lot of
16:36
them take up a lot of space, but we
16:38
do have cookbooks that my mom has had that
16:41
were given to her by her mom and you
16:43
know, they're, they're generational and you can't even imagine
16:45
parting with things like those. Like those are in
16:47
their own file. It's almost as important as medical
16:49
records. Yeah. Like she said of things that you're,
16:52
you're going to make this recipe. Exactly.
16:55
What effect do you think that schooling
16:58
and working from home is going to
17:00
have on the amount of
17:02
paper being used since we're not going to
17:04
have assignments to turn in in the same
17:06
way? Are you talking about
17:08
with the pandemic? You mean? Yes. Yeah.
17:11
So I am pretty adamant as
17:13
an educator myself that when
17:15
you write things down with your hand with a
17:17
pencil or pen on a piece of paper, you
17:20
are five times more likely to remember what you
17:22
write down with your physical hand than what you
17:24
type out. And there is a different brain process
17:26
that happens when we physically write things out or
17:29
draw or, you know, use our hands for things
17:31
versus just typing them on a computer. Additionally,
17:34
when you read things from a printed
17:36
out piece of paper or a book,
17:38
your brain absorbs it differently than when
17:40
it reads it on, on a computer.
17:42
So I feel like different children learn
17:45
better in different modalities. And
17:47
so my children learn
17:49
best on physical paper. So my daughter's
17:51
been going to community college and
17:54
when she's ready to have her assignment, we
17:56
go into the online portal and we print
17:58
everything out. And then she highlights and
18:00
we write notes about what she's supposed to do
18:02
first, second, and third, and then she goes off
18:04
and does that and brings that back to me,
18:06
and she would not be able to do that
18:08
just digitally from a computer. So give yourself permission
18:10
to go ahead and print it. Like even if
18:12
the school is not going to provide it in
18:14
printed form, I always had, for my
18:17
kids, the school would provide actually physical textbooks
18:19
even though they had them on their iPad.
18:21
Some kids just learn better that way. And
18:24
then also Organize 365 has actually created
18:26
a planner for the kids in our kids program
18:28
because keeping track of everything
18:30
on the computer, your assignments that you're
18:32
doing in your online class, plus what's
18:34
due by the end of the day,
18:36
plus your long-range projects is
18:38
really abstract and hard for kids, really
18:41
hard for everybody to do. But
18:43
it's hard for kids to do and then communicate that
18:45
to their parents and also to their teacher. And if
18:48
you can just get an old fashioned calendar and
18:50
write down the assignments that are due or get out
18:52
a legal pad and write down your classes for the
18:54
day and what you're doing in each class and then
18:57
put a little fishy through that when you're done, like
18:59
a little an X is connected.
19:01
So you're like, look, I did everything at the end
19:03
of the day. It will give you a great sense
19:05
of satisfaction. And then parents can look at their kids
19:07
list and be like, oh, I see that you wrote
19:09
everything down. I see that you crossed
19:11
everything out. You must be done. Or I see you have
19:13
these two things left. How can I help you get those done? And
19:16
it eases the communication versus a parent saying, what do
19:18
you have left to do? And the student trying to
19:20
find it or the parent going through a whole bunch
19:22
of emails and saying, get back over here. We got
19:24
to get this done. What
19:27
are the health hazards associated with
19:29
having a lot of paper around
19:31
your home? If
19:34
you have like an exorbitant amount of paper,
19:36
you're going to have more dust. Like I'm
19:38
allergic to dust. And I can also tell
19:40
when I do some people's filing cabinets, if
19:42
there's been some water in there, I can
19:44
tell if there's mold or mildew, but that's
19:46
very rare. What about
19:48
vermin and stuff? Yeah,
19:50
they like that too. I
19:54
mean, every house I've been in, we've had,
19:56
they might just like to be indoors as much as
19:58
people do is all I have to say. say about
20:00
that, like I don't really think it's necessarily totally
20:02
a cleanly thing, but the closer you are to
20:04
a wood, the more likely you're gonna find one
20:06
of those eventually. What should
20:08
we do if we find papers that we're going
20:11
to need some sort of records that
20:13
are water damaged or do have
20:15
damage from vermin or just any
20:17
sort of damage at all and we need to restore
20:19
them to an extent? Yeah,
20:21
if it's just like, so if it's like a legal
20:24
document, like a birth certificate or something like that, you
20:26
might have to go to the courthouse and get another
20:28
one produced. But for anything
20:30
else that's not like legally stamped or notarized, you
20:32
could just make a copy of
20:35
it, like on a copier and if you don't have
20:37
a copier or you don't have a printer, you can
20:39
go to the UPS store, you can go to Staples
20:41
or any of those office supply stores. They have copiers
20:43
there and you could just make copies. What's
20:46
wrong with getting a storage unit to
20:49
put all your paper in if you really have a ton
20:51
of it? I have no
20:54
problem with people getting storage units. I think
20:56
they serve a great purpose, especially if you're
20:58
going through a life transition and you can't
21:00
go through your physical possessions or your paper
21:02
in the amount of time that you need
21:04
to in order to sell a house or to move or something
21:06
like that. I'm very pro storage
21:09
unit. As long as you know how
21:11
long you're going to have that storage unit before you
21:13
actually tackle it and then what is your plan for
21:15
tackling it. So if you've lost a loved one and
21:17
you want to put it all in storage and then
21:19
in one year you're going to pull out two boxes
21:21
every month, I think that's totally fine as long as you can
21:23
afford it. And going forward,
21:25
if we're just starting today saying, hey, this
21:27
is a great thing to do, I want
21:30
to start saving less paper. Is it a
21:32
good idea to just maybe print something out
21:34
like you mentioned with your daughter's assignments, do
21:36
the assignments and then immediately throw something out
21:39
so you're not looking at it
21:41
in a couple of weeks? I'm like, well, I don't know
21:43
what to do with it. And I haven't made an initial
21:45
decision. Oh, yes. I recycle
21:47
and trash paper like hourly right before the interview.
21:49
I just went through my notes and I was
21:51
like, oh, that one's done, that one's done, that
21:53
one's done. I just put them in
21:55
the recycle pile. So paper is just there to serve
21:58
you. It's not a... a
22:00
record of everything you've done. So as soon as you can look
22:02
at that list and see that everything's done, go ahead and get
22:04
rid of it. I like to write one
22:06
thing on each index card. Index cards are very inexpensive.
22:09
They're easy to carry right with your phone. And then
22:11
as those things get done, I just recycle or
22:13
throw them away as I go through my day. So
22:15
it's not like a to-do list where I'm like,
22:17
well, I did four out of 14 things and
22:20
I have to rewrite it and keep carrying it. I would
22:22
rather just have all that on note cards. How
22:25
important is organization of paper
22:27
and other things around
22:29
the home? How important are those
22:32
things to a happy relationship? I
22:34
think the piece that is important
22:37
to a happy relationship is specifically
22:40
for women, the confidence you have in being
22:42
able to retrieve items when they're requested of
22:44
you. Usually it goes that way. Like a
22:46
man will make a request and the
22:48
woman will know the answer, but not where the piece
22:50
of paper is. And then she feels like, oh, I
22:52
have failed in this and I need to stop everything
22:54
so I can find this piece of paper. I
22:57
know as women have been doing the Sunday basket,
22:59
when they can even be like driving down the
23:01
road and they get that phone call, they could
23:03
say, great, it's located right here. You can go
23:05
get it and it's done. And they feel a
23:08
sense of confidence and also that they continue
23:10
on about their life instead of stopping, driving
23:12
back home, finding this thing that's needed right
23:14
away. What is the Sunday basket?
23:17
So the Sunday basket is kind of like your
23:19
inbox that you would keep on your kitchen counter.
23:21
It's where you put all your mail and your
23:23
actionable to-dos. And then I mentioned earlier that you
23:25
need a time every week to go through things.
23:27
So for me, that time is Sunday. That's when
23:29
I process through my mail and my bills and
23:32
what's gonna go on the calendar and empty out my
23:34
email inbox. And like you
23:36
say, progress is better than perfect in terms
23:38
of going through your things and don't just
23:41
let yourself fall into the trap of, well,
23:43
I can't go through all of it right now so I
23:45
might as well not even start. Exactly,
23:47
yes. You're never going to get through your
23:49
to-do list. Have you ever? Like, have you ever?
23:52
I've never. No, I don't think so. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
23:54
no, no, no, no, no. What are
23:56
you trying to do? So the Sunday
23:58
basket is more like all the possibilities. of how you
24:00
might spend your time next week. And as you go through
24:02
it, it usually takes about 90 minutes, pay the bills, go
24:04
through the calendar. And you look at all these possibilities and
24:07
you say, you know what, this week I'm gonna be able
24:09
to get through five of these or 10 of these. And
24:11
what you will find out is the fact that you're not
24:13
going to get it all done. But news flash, you're not
24:15
getting it all done right now. At least
24:17
you know it's in this box. If you need
24:20
it, you'll know where to go find it, but
24:22
you've proactively selected five things you're gonna get done
24:24
this week. And over time, it usually takes about
24:26
six weeks. You really start to feel on top
24:29
of your to-dos and more in control of
24:31
what's going on with your paper. And
24:33
Lisa, what is the best advice you would have
24:35
in terms of the general rules for what
24:38
we need to save in terms of paper?
24:41
So if you already know how you'd find that
24:43
same piece of paper online, like through a digital
24:45
search, or like in the case of manuals that
24:47
you never are going to fix anything, go ahead
24:50
and feel free to get rid of it. If
24:52
you are like, I'm not sure if I'm going
24:54
to need this paper or not, I actually counsel
24:56
you to keep it. And then when
24:58
you run across that paper six months or a year from
25:00
now and you go, you know what, I really don't need
25:03
this, you'll be more confident as you declutter and you won't
25:05
worry if you've over-decluttered or
25:07
gotten rid of too much. Lisa,
25:09
at the end of each show, we ask
25:11
our guests, what is your nobody told me
25:14
lesson? So what is it that
25:16
nobody told you about paper and what
25:18
to save and what to get rid of that
25:21
you wish that they had that would have
25:23
made your life a lot easier when you
25:25
first encountered the problem? I
25:28
think I fell into the belief
25:30
that we would touch paper once and we
25:32
were going to be paperless. And nobody told
25:34
me as Americans, we can have less paper,
25:37
but you will never be 100% paperless. I
25:40
spent 10 years trying to figure out how to
25:42
get to paper zero and I could never achieve
25:44
that goal. But now that I know the goal
25:46
is just less paper, I can achieve that every
25:48
week. And you don't see a
25:50
paperless future at any point
25:52
in our futures. I don't
25:54
for Americans know. Interesting.
25:57
Lisa, how can people connect with you on...
26:00
social media and the internet. Sure,
26:02
so I have a podcast called Organize 365 and a website
26:05
by the same name organize365.com.
26:08
Alright, well we thank you so much for joining us Lisa.
26:10
This has been just fascinating. What a cool
26:12
topic. Thank you so much for
26:15
having me. Again, our thanks
26:17
to our guest professional organizer Lisa
26:19
Woodruff whose latest book is called
26:21
The Paper Solution, What to Shred,
26:23
What to Save, and How to Stop
26:25
It from Taking Over Your Life. And again,
26:27
her website is organized365.com and what a
26:29
great time to take advantage of some
26:31
of these tips during quarantine while you
26:34
have the time to go through that.
26:36
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm Laura Owens and
26:38
I'm Jan Black and you've been listening
26:40
to Nobody Told Me. Thanks for joining
26:42
us. you
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