Bob

Batz

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September 29, 2008

You Get Organized! I’d Rather Not

I’m not very organized. My desk drawers look like a dozen gnomes were inside playing “52-pickup.”

My wallet is bursting at the seams with all sorts of papers but I can never find my driver’s license.

The glove box of my car is empty, but the floors are piled high with yellowed newspapers, soft drink cups and gosh knows what else.

Nope, I’m not very organized. Whenever I go someplace I’m late or early but never right on time.

I often promise myself that I will start budgeting my time. “Time,” I tell myself, “is money.”

I also tell myself “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

That’s what I say, all right. But then something always comes up, and I have to put off until tomorrow – or maybe next week – my plan to budget my time.

Maybe I’m not very organized because I’m a “saver” of all things. A pack rat, if you prefer. I never throw anything away because I really, really believe that someday I’ll really need all of the things I save.

I have a file cabinet in the basement of my house that has several of those cardboard “divider” doohickies – the ones with the plastic clips on which you can note what is in the file cabinet by writing things like “Projects to Do” and “People to Call.”

Trouble is, I’ve only filled out one of the dividers and it says “Miscellaneous.”

The office itself isn’t what you would call fancy. The “In” and “Out” basket on my desk is made of half an empty donut box and I have no way of knowing which of the thousands of items crammed into the box  are supposed to be “In” or “Out,” so everything just kind of lays there in the box collecting cobwebs.

I guess the reason I’m not organized is because I don’t think being organized is very much fun.

I’d much rather do other things than waste my time getting organized; things like playing with the grandkids or watching sunsets or playing with the dog.

I know lots of people who are organized. But most of them are real bores.

I think being disorganized makes life more exciting. I mean, hey, I think it’s really neat to reach into a desk drawer without knowing what I’m going to pull out. And I think it’s a real blast to find something in your wallet you thought you threw away 11 years ago.  

My wife Sally doesn’t share my enthusiasm for things haphazard. Her motto is “Everything has it’s place.”

While it isn’t a particularly clever motto, it seems to work just fine for her.

Yes, Sally’s really organized. And she wants me to be organized, too.

That’s why she bought me a little sign for the top of my desk. The sign bears the words “Get Organized” and I’m going to put the sign on top of my desk where it will serve as a constant reminder that being organized is really, really important.

Now all I have to do is figure out what the heck I did with that sign.

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com       

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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