Lost control
My time management skills profoundly suck, and I can't figure out why -- I'm convinced it's some neurological impairment like ADHD or something.
I used to be a meticulously organized person. I had a filing system and kept receipts of everything and was generally very anal retentive. About the same time I hooked up with Bonnie, this all went to Hell. And this is no indictment against her, either, although she is profoundly disorganized about a great many things. It just seemed that when I began to share my life with someone else, as I did basically for the first time with her, I began to lose the ability to keep track of my own.
My disorganization picked up momentum when we got pregnant and started to have kids. It's been sort of like an avalanche -- there must have been a trigger event that sent a little bit of snow sliding off a precipice, and that snow took all the other snow with it. Now, three kids later, I'm about a mile downslope buried under yards of snow, wondering how to breathe and which direction is up. The question is, how do I get this mess undone?
On some levels, it feels like trying to get the genie back in the bottle or closing the barn doors after the horses have left -- there's no question that the damage is done. But you'd think that there should be a finite point somewhere along the way where I can just draw a line in the sand and say, "Okay, this is it. I'm getting my shit together *right now* and nothing will stop me," but everything I do just seems to be pushing off more chaos.
Part of the problem is that I just get overwhelmed with the scale of it all. So many pieces of paper that make up the detritus of my life -- medical claims forms, receipts, tax returns, bills, invoices, statements. What do I do with it all? How do I get it under control?
I'm told that when facing a huge task, the best thing to do is focus on one, small, manageable part of it and that seems like sensible advice. Alas, even the act of finding that small, manageable part often seems insurmountable by the end of the day. I get flustered even trying to decide what's trash and what's not. Is this Best Buy receipt for my copy of the Indiana Jones DVD set worth keeping? But what if I discover some flaw that requires a disc to be replaced, or need it for some heretofore unknown rebate that might net me savings? Where do I put it? Well, I don't have a folder for these things in my already overburdened file cabinet, so I'll just stick it in this pile here.
And that's how it starts. Weeks from now, that pile will have Sub Club tickets from Subway and a few crumpled Fleet ATM slips and a half-torn note with someone's phone number who I can't remember but don't want to throw away.
Seriously. Isn't there some drug I can take?
Comments
I hear ya, buddy. I feel exactly the same way. This morning I was in the basement because we've decided to have a yard sale this weekend. I was almost in despair because I just couldn't figure out where to start. The task of sorting through the mass of junk looked so overwhelming. One of the problems is that with a baby, there are no long uninterrupted periods of time to really deal with these things properly, so we are endlessly "starting to organize", and never getting to point where things are actually organized. For us anal retentive types, this is a special kind of hell.
Posted by: doktorwise | October 29, 2003 02:00 PM
You don't even have to be an anal retentive type. My house (which incidentally I never thought we could possibly fill up) is overflowing with stuff. Receipts, magazine, clothes that don't fit...you name it.
We were going to have a yard sale too...I opted for Good Will and the tax deduction for most of the stuff.
I do my best to file all our pertinent papers, but right now the backlog is about 3 feet high.
So, I hear you and good luck!
Posted by: suellen | October 29, 2003 04:43 PM
I was recently presenting an alpha build when I couldn't remember the word "tessellate" which was incredibly integral to the feature I was demonstrating.
I also can't remember names worth crap.
WE ARE ALL SPECIAL PEOPLE!
Posted by: James | October 29, 2003 07:48 PM