It's January? Let's GO!

GO, as in Get Organized. As in, January is Get Organized (GO) month for many people. “Get organized” is such a popular resolution that the National Association of Professional Organizers has declared January as GO month.

I was going to feature the second part of my recent (and insanely popular) “manage your mail” post today, but I’ll wait a few days and instead suggest two helpful resources for organizing inspiration.

First up is a recent Wall Street Journal article on how to create more effective to-do lists.   Various experts, including veteran organizer Julie Morgenstern, weigh in and call for lists that aren’t terrifying in their length and scope. Most effective? Assigning a priority to tasks and scheduling time to tackle them.

The article includes a handwritten to-do list from music legend Johnny Cash. No. 1: Not smoke. No. 2: Kiss June. No. 3: Not kiss anyone else. In the “notes” section at the bottom of the list, he wrote: “Not write notes.” Gotta love that.

If you favor e-lists, try rememberthemilk.com, which helps you track and rank your to-dos.

And the current issue of Real Simple magazine features an article on how to confront what its editors dub “sentimental clutter” — the little objects that are as meaningful to us as the people who used them, made them or gave them to us. Some of the most helpful suggestions in Marjorie Ingalls’ article (which doesn’t seem to be available on line) include saving a favorite postcard from, say, a collection of correspondance and transforming an item (such as a tattered handmade quilt) into something that can be enjoyed in a new form (such as a framed art or a wall hanging).

The bottom line, of course, is that objects may remind us of someone beloved, but they aren’t that person. Ingalls, who writes about her beloved late father’s frog collection, wisely concludes that “the best and most enduring things are the ones you can’t touch.”

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