[rescue] OT: Clutter???

[vraptor at employees.org]

Most people think "getting organized" is the goal, so they
just dive in, hence it's really easy to lose sight of the
big picture.

Morgenstern advocates setting the *real* goal--*WHY* do you
want to "get organized"?  Do you waste time looking for stuff,
waste money buying duplicates because you can't find the
first one, waste money and goodwill paying your bills late,
etc.  Do you need to travel a great deal, so you want to
have everything organized for easy access?  Do you play a
lot of different sports so you want things organized so you
can just grab a bag and hop in the car to play raquetball,
paintball, or go skiing on short notice?

Or maybe you like to work on a lot of projects, but you also
need to be conscious of the impact a mess makes on your SO/
roommates/kids, so you need some way to quickly get your
"project stuff" out, use it for a couple of hours, then
quickly clean up when it's time for work/dinner/sleep.

"Organizing" is the final step towards a goal (not the first
as most people think), and as with all goal-setting activities,
*planning* has to happen for the goal will be reached.

(Yeah, I'm a bit of a proselytizer for this idea now--~35 yrs.
of mess, and I've finally found an answer--it's had a *big*
affect.)

=Nadine=

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Chad Fernandez wrote:

>Tim H. wrote:
>> I am messy for convenience, and because of an unfulfilled desire to be
>> very organized.  Whenever I start cleaning I end up getting to a
>> miscellaneous storage container (of which I have many) and spend the
>> time I have available to clean sorting the different sizes and types of
>> screws, etc. and never return to the big picture.  Which is much
>> different than my wife, who just throws everything away until the big
>> picture looks right.
>
>Thats what I tend to do, I think...... loose the big picture, while
>sorting something.
>
>> I am learning to eliminate horizontal surfaces in my own space, because
>> even a small horizontal area will rapidly become a large stack.  I can
>> get 2 or three feet high on top of a Sun IPX, and of course the pile is
>> larger than the area of the surface, so I do have occasional landslides.
>
>Landslides?? That's pretty bad :-)
>
>Chad Fernandez
>Michigan, USA
>_______________________________________________
>rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue