Cover Image: The Paper Solution

The Paper Solution

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Member Reviews

This was a great book! I took so long reading it, because I was totally trying to do everything that the author was suggesting to get myself organized and to minimize my paper within my house. Great suggestions and direction on keeping myself a little less cluttered.

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The Paper Solution by Lisa Woodruff is just what I needed. I am new to Lisa’s work and I have already signed up for Organize 365(website, newsletter, Facebook)
Lisa is realistic and writes as if she is talking to a friend. She provides a step-by-step guide in a way that is positive, supportive and informative.
Before COVID, I would have loved to attend one of her workshops where you work through your paper together with other likeminded women.

Also Included with the book is free access to all of the fabulous printables she mentions - those alone are worth the price of this book
I received this book from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review.
You can see my full review at More Than a Review dot com where I rate the level of sex, violence, language and drug/alcohol use in books.

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Could use more formatting and organizing. Good ideas but too much anecdotal information within the bullet points, these lists could be more concise.

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Woodruff is a genius.
She is an organizational genius who manages to make daunting not only possible, but a pleasure. Woodruff's specialty is paper -- the very stuff that is smothering, blocking, and piling up in hidden and obvious places throughout my home -- and her buoyant, encouraging, and clear approach to tackling the never-solved, never-wanting-to-do organizational mission totally changed my mind in what to do and how to do it. Have put her recommendations into immediate action -- and am helping a friend with her own massive and overwhelming paper tsunami.
Calm, cool, understanding....Woodruff is the guide you want at your side while you wade through your own paper disasters and the others that inevitably come our way in this supposedly electronic world that spawns way more paper and complexity than anyone ever anticipated.
Kudos -- and thank you -- and hooray!

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I’m an organization junkie and – try as I might to go paperless – I still seem to end up with more stacks of paper than I would like, so I was eager to dive into The Paper Solution. While I feel there’s value in the advice author Lisa Woodruff gives and there is definitely no bad advice in this book, my feelings when I finished this were a bit mixed.

The biggest issue I had with The Paper Solution is that – to me – a lot of the statistics and information seem dated already (pulling stats from eight years ago doesn’t prove a point to me when technology has changed significantly since then). Yes, paper has an insidious way of piling up…except for that one sneaky form you happen to need at the time that goes missing. But there are a lot of items (bills, for example) which have digital download and reminder options. There’s a big emphasis on a “Sunday basket” and using various color-coded slash pockets to ensure you don’t lose things and remember to go through them. There’s also an emphasis on binders (household warranties and manuals, medical binders, etc.) That’s helpful advice, but again, feels dated when so much of this can be done digitally.

The Paper Solution feels like more of a useful guide to people who either want or are forced to keep a lot of paper rather than digitize and eliminate. Or perhaps it is for people whose lives are more chaotic than mine. I think people who find themselves overwhelmed and/or have larger households than I do might find this book more helpful. The organization tips seem useful to managing overwhelming situations, such as settling an estate. The tips and tricks are solid, so even though some things felt dated to me and I didn’t personally find the book useful, I recommend it for people whose paper piles are impacting their lives.

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I'm familiar with the author's Sunday Basket program and her podcast, but have never given it a try. However, I think this book has convinced me to start a basket system to help organize some of the piles around my house. I'm not sure I totally buy into her Binder system, and I feel that most of these things can be kept digitally, but I appreciate the idea/support/strategy behind narrowing down the stuff you keep to only what you can store in a few places. Highly recommend this for supportive and enthusiastic tone throughout.

ARC provided through NetGalley, but the opinions are entirely my own.

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I'm having to monitor what I'm reading during this pandemic pretty closely, and I find that the strangest things are causing my constant anxiety to spiral out of control. I found this book to cause me lots of stress (so much paper in the world!!! So much waste!!!!)

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