“Group items in your refrigerator by type, labeling shelves so family members know where items belong. When it’s time to shop, you can clearly see what you need.” — Real Simple (April 2009)

Is that so?

If you have an egg shelf, and it’s empty, I can see how that would signal “buy eggs.” But will a half-full produce drawer say “apples”? Oranges? Zucchini? What if I really need bananas?

This is a fairly typical tip. It sounds lovely, and I’m sure the author thought she was quite clever when she wrote it. But I’d also bet a lot of money that the author has no such labels in her own refrigerator.

The Internet abounds with lists of tips, and they are reportedly a strong way to drive traffic to a website. I’d like to encourage you to stop reading tips like these, and more importantly, take great care not to share any yourself.

Reading such “tips” not only takes up your valuable time, but it likely causes your Type-A personality a great deal of stress. Suggesting that you label your fridge may seem innocent enough, until we whip out the label maker and actually try to do it. (Please don’t try. It’s impossible, unless you intend to eat the same exact food in the same exact quantities every single day for as long as you own your fridge.)

Destructively Vapid Tips

Then there’s tips like these:

Eat more spinach.

On its face, good advice. But how do you eat more spinach? More that what? What’s the baseline amount of spinach? How much more? Why spinach — could I eat something else? In fact, could I get the same benefits by eating less of a different food? Can I eat too much spinach? For how long do I need to eat more spinach? How will I remember this calculation for the next 50 years?

Ultimately, these tips are not only empty suggestions of questionable merit, but they’re triggers for us to go on multi-day organizing binges trying to implement their advice. Eating more spinach sounds good, and you want to do it, but with zero guidance and action plans, all the tipster really did was tease you and take you on a lengthy wild goose chase. You’ll end up with a fridge full of spinach and a pile of spinach-related research notes in your inbox, at the expense of tending to your real responsibilities.

In my Type-A eyes, a responsible writer will present concrete action steps and facts to accompany their suggestions. Don’t make trite admonitions to “get more sleep” or “relax” — one cannot just go do that, and you know it.

If you’re a writer, you should be keeping a refresher list that you review before editing each piece. Please consider adding the following questions to your refresher list. (Or, if you see another writer sharing vapid tips, email them a link to this article!)

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Sharing a Tip

• Have I actually done this?
  Does it really work, or does it just sound like a good idea? If the latter, make a plan to actually try the tip out personally.
• How would I go about implementing this tip right now?
  If your first inclination is to do research or make a project list, then your original writing is not thorough enough. Do the research and write the task list out, but then incorporate that information into your piece.
• Is this the best approach?
  Your suggestion might lead to reaching the right goal, but are you reasonably certain there isn’t a faster, cheaper, or otherwise better way to achieve the same (or better) end result?

(Photo by Brett L..)

The main complaint I hear about getting organized is that it’s so constricting. People feel like slaves to their to-do lists, chained to their project notebooks and their Crackberries.

I would argue that these people are not truly organized at all, for the goal of organization is the greatest goal there is: freedom.

What does freedom look like?

It’s tomorrow morning, and you’ve just woken up. You’re really craving a croissant from a sidewalk cafe — in Paris. Fifty-six minutes later, you’re in your car, on the way to the airport.

Your initial reaction to this was probably: “Impossible! Only a rich person who didn’t work could do that.” But you’re wrong. If they’re not organized, even a billionaire couldn’t make it out the door that fast.

However, if they are truly organized, someone with just a small amount of money in the bank can be out the door within the hour, and more importantly, they’ll be able to enjoy an entirely stress-free trip.

Consider the aforementioned scenario through the eye of organization:

6:00AM – Your computer starts playing your favorite motivational song while displaying a random inspirational quotation on the screen. This encourages you to jump right out of bed and conquer the day. Of course, since you got to bed at a reasonable time last night, and since you’ve been exercising regularly and eating healthy, you were wide-awake, anyway.

6:02AM - As you sip the coffee that your timed coffee pot just finished brewing, you decide you want a real Parisian croissant.

6:04AM – You pop open Google Calendar and check your obligations for the week. You see that Aunt Bertha is coming to town Friday night at 6pm.

6:05AM – You pop open del.icio.us and click your “travel +compare” tag, which pulls up the three best travel comparison sites. You search for roundtrip tickets to Paris, along with a rental car and a hotel. Each travel site already has your preferences, frequent flyer numbers, and credit card number saved. While those pages load, you click your “travel + coupons” tag and find the coupon for $100 off an international fight you received in an email last Wednesday. You also click your “paris” tag and remember that you’ve been meaning to visit the Rodin Museum ever since you saw Frank Wildhorn’s “Camille Claudel” musical.

6:08AM – You find and book a round-trip flight that leaves in three hours, and returns Friday morning, leaving you ample time to unpack and pick up Aunt Bertha at the airport. You check the weather in Paris and see it’s going to be chilly enough for a light jacket.

6:10AM – You hop in the shower and run through your AM scaffold. As you complete each step in your hygiene routine (brush your teeth, moisturize, etc.), you put the necessary items in your travel bag, which sits at the ready under the sink. It already contains travel-sized samples of most necessities, like shampoo, toothpaste, and shaving cream, along with a small comb and a spare manual toothbrush (so you can leave your Sonicare at home).

6:40AM – You’ll be gone for three days and three nights, so you grab three of each type of clothing. Since your color-coded wardrobe only contains clean, in-season clothes that fit you well, and since your regular exercise habit means you don’t have to try anything on to make sure it fits, packing is effortless.

6:43AM – You check your tickler files for the next few days. It’s your cousin John’s birthday on Saturday, so you’d planned to drop his card in the mail on Thursday. You decide you’d rather it arrive early than late, so you put it on your suitcase to remember to drop it in the mail on the way out to your car. (It was already filled out, addressed, and stamped.) Your electric bill is due on Wednesday, but that’s on auto bill-pay — no problem.

6:45AM - You activate your “travel” Gmail filter that forwards email from your main two clients to your Blackberry world phone, and leave a note on your website that you’re in Paris and will respond to email when you get back. You update your Facebook status for good measure (and of course, you Twitter it, too).

6:47AM – You check your trusty “Travel Checklist.” It reminds you to make sure you have no liquids in your carry-on (a quick rummage through your bag reveals a bottle of sunscreen, which you leave out); to bring a snack (you grab a few pre-measured bags of oat bran from the pantry); and to get your passport (which you quickly grab from your fireproof box). You text your best friend, who has your spare apartment key, and let him know you’ll be gone, and change your personal voicemail message to let callers know you’re out of the country.

6:53AM – You leave a voicemail for your boss, faking a stuffy nose.

6:55AM – You grab a stack of magazines from your “Read/Review” pile (so you can throw them out as you read them and won’t have to lug already-consumed material back home) and your [fully-charged] iPod.

6:56AM – You leave for the airport — early.

Let’s not forget the things you didn’t even have to think about:

• Your will and power of attorney paperwork is in order, in case you eat a bad croissant;
• Your wallet has everything you need in it, and nothing more;
• Your car has a full tank, so you don’t need to stop on the way to the airport;
• Your iPod is synced with the latest music, movies, podcasts, and audiobooks, so you can learn French on-the-go;
• Your Moleskine is already in your bag, along with a handful of pens;
• Your finances are in good enough shape that you have the financial ability to afford this trip.

How “restrictive” do you think a strong organizational system is now?

(Update: Many people have asked if I’ve actually done this. Yes and no. I haven’t felt like going to Paris yet, but I have gone to Japan and Germany on 56 minutes’ notice. I also make a point of not preparing for any trip more than 56 minutes before leaving.)