I think the part of my brain that lets me organize things is broken.
It’s not that I don’t want to have a tidy and organized space. It’s just that every time I try to do it, it’s like my brain just puts up a gate and says no. Pushing myself through doesn’t work. Even 20/10s don’t work (sorry, PoM). I think it’s the planning ahead where things will go aspect that doesn’t work; it’s kind of the same shut-down that happens whenever I try to plan for the future. My shrink says it’s PTSD-related. Whatever it is, I can feel my neat-freak mother glaring over my shoulder. Le sigh.
14 replies on “This Weekend Open Thread is an Organizational Nightmare”
The brunt of my job this week has involved me either completely moving existing sections of the store to new locations, or resetting existing sections into completely new layouts. It involves MAPS and DETAILED LISTS and LABELS and PHYSICAL LABOR and I FREAKING LOVE IT. I definitely took my mother to an aisle I moved/reset and basically said LOOK, I MADE DIS. It’s great, and I’m kind of dreading going back to cashiering next week.
I SHOULD BE reading for class right now. Instead I’m watching Lost and periodically bringing my NEW KITTEN out of our room, into the living room, where the roommate’s dog wants to be Tessie’s best friend and the cat hates everyone and everything.
Picture! She was SUPER HUNGRY.
KITTTEHHH
She is SO TINY and I’m working on training her not to bite. I have several spray bottles that I can’t always reach, and she’s small enough that I can move her away from my hand/arm/whatever she thinks she can bite.
And my roommate has no problem with the occasional “I need to to hold Tessie so I can get my laundry from my room/take a shower/work on socialization”, which helps too :)
I’m also playing with her paws so nail trimming will be easier.
And she has a collar with a bell and a night-light so I can see where she is at night.
Current job requires a certain amount of organization and I’m not naturally inclined to organization. So I’m trying to make it up as I go, finding an organizational system that works best for me.
It’s not going real great atm.
(Feel free to ignore this-I can only go so long without giving advice and NO ONE has asked me for any lately :/)
I’m not naturally organized either, but when I do HAVE to be organized, I tend towards the hyper-organized. Some things that helped me be organized for work were color-coding (LOVE color coding!) and the realization that as long as the people that needed to find something could find it, it wasn’t a huge deal where it was. Also, I took time every Friday afternoon to tidy up…anything that had a home was put in the home, trash was disposed of, whiteboard cleaned, to-do list for next week created, etc. The Friday clean up really helped me to “put away” the week and made getting started on Monday so much easier.
It might also help to start with a system designed by someone else that seems to click for you, and then adjust it to fit rather than build one yourself from scratch.
(So glad I got that advice giving out of my system!)
No, this is great. I do have a tendency to copy other people’s organization styles or just take over what they’ve started. The color coding is a real good idea. I’ll have to look into that.
If you haven’t already found it, lifehacker.com has a lot of ideas, you just have to search for them. But then you might end up worse than when you started (if you’re the analysis-paralysis type).
So I just caught up on Outlander and then saw this on Another Ladyblog and PERFECTION.
I took the chemistry GRE this morning. Not really sure what I’m going to do with it, but thought it would be good to prepare for it and perhaps useful if I get a good score.
Today at work I spent a considerable amount of time scanning documents, filing other documents, and alphabetizing a huge stack of other documents. I freaking loved it (at least the parts where I was sitting down) and there is not a drop of sarcasm in that statement.
If you want to hire me, however, my rate is $20/hr plus a sandwich from Hanson’s and travel expenses which would include taking an Amtrak from WNY. :-P
I LOVE filing and alphabetizing-it’s a finite task, there’s a specific “correct” way so no agonizing decisions, and you’ve brought order out of chaos! What’s not to love?
I’m also available for hire, and I’ll even waive my hourly fee (not sure what it is, but I’m sure it’s exorbitant). But you’ll have to cover transportation…from Seattle…
On a serious note, has your shrink suggested any resources/starting points/helpful stuff? Are you in a place in which you’re feeling ready for suggestions/helpful resources/things like that? I ask because I’m a fixer and my first impulse is to suggest things that I’ve found helpful, but I don’t want to…ummm…trying to think of the right words…can’t…going with “be obnoxious.”
Where in WNY do you live? I grew up in Buffalo!