Saturday, March 26, 2022

Antidisorganization

      I haven't posted anything today because I have been busy,  It's the most wheel-spinning task I know, a problem I make for myself: I have been sorting out the vast mass of stuff, mostly bills and mail, that covers my desk and spills over into untidy stacks.

      It doesn't help that I don't have much of a filing system.  I try to file paid bills in twelve-slot folder, one per year, and usually succeed, but past that--  Things accumulate.  There is a place for most of them, but it's a lot of work to put them there, especially once the stacks get in the way of opening file drawers.

      So I am working it through the hard way, with a series of labeled cardboard boxes -- including one marked "shred."  Anything that doesn't already have a box gets set aside in its own pile, and if more than a few things end up in that pile, I start a new box.

      The next step is to pick a box and sort it, throwing away as much as possible.  And then on to the next.  It's not fun, but it has to be done.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like my "system" . . . and I sympathize completely. ;-)

Cop Car said...

Good luck on your venture, Roberta. Sounds like you have a good plan.

I've always wondered if there would be a large membership were I to start a group for filing-deficient people such as am I. As my secretary told me in 1981, "[CC} keep your hands off the files. If you want something I will get it, if you want something filed I will file it." I was only marginally better at filing than had been the previous occupant of the office.

The previous occupant, as many ex-military people did, placed his desk across the corner farthest from the door such that he was facing the door when seated at the desk. He had seven piles of papers along the walls in the corner behind him. As far as I could tell, he placed papers atop whichever of the seven piles behind his desk happened to be the shortest that day. The first thing I did was to turn the desk, placing it up against a window - with a view of white sand and gulf water - with my back to the door. (Who needs distractions from people passing by?) When I hired a secretary a few months later, it was she who got rid of the accumulated piles of paper and brought order to our small staff of engineers and programmers. What a difference she made!