May 15, 2015
Dear Everyone:
A few weeks ago I went into “full verticalization mode” with new
shelving in the “back” bedroom.
The organization goes on.
I excavated a pile of papers that had been sitting on the “temporary”
table for around six years.
Example: The registration on
my car, which may or may not have been there since 2006.
The registration, not the car.
More explicitly, the registration expired in 2006.
Fortunately, the registration has been renewed about eight times
since then. Even more
fortunately, no one asked to see the registration at any time when it
was still valid.
I also discovered a notice from the
United States Postal Service
acknowledging my official Change of Address Notice in 2009.
The trouble with Handy Horizontal Surfaces is that they tend to attract
piles of things. Especially
piles of papers, such as the daily onslaught of mail.
I have a friend who would, from time to time, have someone come
in and help her with the housework.
On one occasion, the Helper asked where she wanted to start
first.
“Start by clearing all this stuff off the dining table.
I want to see some wood!”
And it’s not just the dining table that suffers from Handy Horizontal
Surface Syndrome (HHSS).
Whenever I print something from the computer, I tend to put it on a
small convenient table right next to the monitor “just for a moment”.
It may be the receipt from ordering something online.
Or it could be the Agenda for this month’s
ARMA Board Meeting.
Then I get to the Meeting and discover that the Agenda is still
sitting on the small convenient table next to the monitor.
Don’t you just hate when that happens?
On the Plus Side, sometimes verticalization proves extremely helpful.
Last October I got a new
laptop computer.
But I still needed to keep the older laptop close by for when
questions and things came up.
I was at one of the Big Office Supply Warehouse Stores, looking for some
kind of shelf that I could use for the older laptop.
What I wound up with was a pair of stacking plastic drawers,
about 14 inches by 10 inches by 7 inches high.
Not only was it the perfect height, sitting on yet another small
convenient table, to hold the older laptop almost at eye level; but it
also provided two new drawers to stuff things into.
It gave me a place to hold all the postage stamps and return
address labels, as well as a number of other small, but terribly
important, objects. Now I
just have to remember that I put all those small, but terribly
important, objects in the bottom drawer under the older laptop.
Many decades ago I worked in a department that included a number of
lawyers. Each lawyer was
assigned an individual office, complete with very nice wooden furniture,
thus denoting their advanced state of importance over file clerks with
old, beat-up metal furniture.
One of these lawyers was extremely well-organized.
On his very nice wooden credenza, he placed three very nice wooden desk
trays. He labeled them from
left to right in order of increasing importance.
The labels read:
Urgent. Critical.
Festering.
Whatever helps you believe that you’re organized.
Remember:
Organization is what gives you the illusion that you’re in control.
Love, as always,
Pete
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