You asked. Debra answered. From paper mountains to photo chaos, here are the real solutions to the organising problems that keep coming up again and again.
If you’ve ever typed “how do I get organised” into a search bar at 11pm, you are not alone. Debra has heard it all, the paper piles, the overflowing inboxes, the photo libraries with 4,000 untitled images and no idea where to start. She’s taken the questions her clients and community ask most often and answered them properly, once and for all.
“I have a system for old paperwork, but new paper keeps burying me. What do I do?”
This is one of the most common frustrations Debra hears. The good news is, if you already have a working system for processed paper, you are halfway there.
The fix is simple in principle: mirror your existing system for incoming paper. If your processed files are sorted by class or grade (for a teacher) or by family member (for home admin), set up the exact same categories for new paper as it arrives. Use whatever containers you already have. Stackable crates, pull-out drawers, even beer boxes.
Then, protect a block of time each morning just for filing. Work through the incoming paper first, category by category, before moving on to anything else. This keeps your brain in a single thought process at a time rather than jumping between tasks.
The other piece is time-blocking for both backlog and new work, every single day. If you only ever chip away at the backlog, you’ll feel like you’re never making a dent. Working on both in parallel keeps the momentum up and stops the defeated feeling from setting in.
“Where do you shop for organisational supplies?”
Honestly? It depends on your budget. There is no shame in starting with zero spend.
If money is tight, beer boxes and sticky-taped scrap paper labels are a perfectly legitimate system. Debra has set up many a client this way, and it works.
When there is a budget to work with, her go-to stores are Mambos and PNA:
- PNA for files, plastic sleeves, and stationery
- Mambos for containers, plastic drawers, and pull-out units. Generally the best value for those types of products
“Is professional organising an actual profession, or is it self-titled?”
In South Africa, there is currently no formal degree or diploma in professional organising. Most practitioners have come from backgrounds in teaching, business administration, or interior design, with some kind of administrative training underpinning the work.
Internationally, dedicated organising courses do exist, and they cover areas like the psychology of how people process and store information, the emotional impact of avoidance, different learning styles, and neurodiverse approaches to organisation.
What does a professional organiser actually organise? More than most people realise. Professional organising is a broad umbrella, and different practitioners specialise in very different niches:
- Deceased estate clearance
- Business and construction project management
- Virtual PA and document management
- Neurodiverse support and accountability co-working
So while the title is largely self-designated for now, the skill set behind it is very real.
“I have no system for my emails, photos, or desktop. Where do I even start with digital organisation?”
The single most useful principle Debra applies here is this: make your digital filing match your physical filing. Use the same labels and categories across your email, your Google Drive, and your physical folders. When everything speaks the same language, finding things becomes instinctive.
For email: Set up labels that reflect your main life categories. Medical Aid, Utilities, Municipality, and so on. The bonus is that emails are automatically date-stamped when you file them, so your archive becomes self-organising over time.
For Google Drive: Create top-level folders that mirror those email labels, then add subfolders by year (2024, 2025, 2026). For complex categories like medical records, you can go one level deeper. A subfolder per doctor or condition, then by year within that.
For the backlog: Do not try to sort years of chaos in one sitting. Create a folder simply called Backlog, move everything into it, and then give yourself one hour a day, first processing whatever is new and incoming, then slowly drawing the backlog out into your proper structure. Eating the elephant bit by bit, as Debra puts it.
“What small changes make the biggest difference when organising photos? And is there anything you’d never do?”
For photos specifically, Debra recommends starting with four broad top-level categories rather than trying to organise by year or date from the outset. Those four are:
- Individuals: Photos of specific people, subdivided by name. If there are a lot, group them in five-year blocks (0-5, 5-10, 10-15) rather than by individual year.
- Holidays: Hamed by the trip itself (Beach Holiday 2023, Easter in the Mountains) rather than by date. This makes it easy to dump photos straight after you return.
- Celebrations: Birthdays, graduations, and major milestones, labelled by the occasion and the person.
- Spontaneous / Random: Everything that does not fit neatly elsewhere.
Depending on your family, you might add a fifth category for Pets, or separate sections for Work & Clients or Sports & Achievements.
When holidays and celebrations overlap (a beach trip over Christmas, for example), simply pick one folder and stay consistent. There is no universally correct answer, only the system you will actually maintain.
“Any tips for keeping a shared space organised for a whole household or team?”
This question came in about cable management, but Debra’s answer gets at something far more fundamental: the single biggest win in any shared organising system is labelling.
Labels do not need to be fancy. Handwritten works. Drawn pictures work for young children. The point is that labels remove the need for anyone – a family member, a cleaner, a new colleague – to guess or ask. Everyone can see where things belong and put them back correctly without a conversation.
The second piece is teaching the system to the people who share your space, and doing it with patience and consistency. Debra recommends focusing on one room at a time for a full month. Every time the person helping you gets something small wrong: where the scissors go, where the sharp knives live, gently redirect them. One room, one month. Then move on.
It will likely take six months to a year to fully embed the habits across a home. But if you consider that most families keep the same domestic worker for ten years or more, six months of consistent reinforcement is a very small investment for a very long return.
Have a question for Debra? DM us on social media or drop as an email. Your question might just make it into the next round.