Wednesday 9 February 2011

Tidying up.

I am theoretically all in favor of things neat and tidy (and all put away into their proper place). I have a fixed sorting and packing system, for example, for my stuff that I take to market; there's a fixed place that I get the things from, a fixed spot they take up in the car (though that does regularly undergo a slight change), a certain order in which they go into the car and out of it again. And when I pack up my stuff, I know which bit goes into which basket (and you can occasionally hear me mutter the names of the baskets while sorting). This system has been established for a while, and I really, really appreciate knowing where to go for this or that, and where to put things when packing up, since it cuts down on packup time and packup stress enormously. (That's when having to fiddle is most annoying, because all you want is get everything and yourself into the car and have the journey home over with...)

However for some reason, many of my things tend not to stay in their neat and tidy place, nor the place neat and tidy. So after postponing it often enough, I used a bit of my mostly-off-day yesterday to sort through stuff in my study cupboard and rearrange its innards so that everything has its proper place again and more fits in besides that. It was actually successful, and as usually not as bad as I always picture it. There's still a bit of rearranging and sorting to do before the season start, but at least it is a beginning.

And even more of a wonder, I have actually tackled the heap on my desk this morning and taken it down considerably. And I'm sure that all the rest of the heap will also not be so bad. Which brings me to a continuously amazing (and unfortunately a recurring) thought:

How can it be that things that are not so bad to properly stow away or take care of after all, something very beneficial to the general workflow or style of life, get put away improperly again and again? Even if the person putting off to deal with it has repeatedly experienced the benefits himself or herself and knows that it would be really not so bad to just do it? Is there a genetical quirk I can blame, or do I have to shoulder all the responsibility for being slack myself?

Does anybody have an answer for this? Or, better yet, a trick to make me magically orderly and non-reluctant to do bookkeeping and taxes?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love it, when stuff has it's specific place. Maybe, because I tend to get frustrated if I have to search for something and do not find it right away. At the moment I'm yearning for 2 or 3 weeks to get my flat organised.

It's really hard to put evrything back to it's place neatly. Maybe it's laziness?
I think it's normal to have some stuff lying around. But if it gets out of hand or is always the same thing. It could be a sign to look for another storage space for it. If stuff is ankward to reach or in a shelf I do not walk by anyway I just put it on the table and it can stay there for weeks (and it will not be alone)...

Viele Grüße
Susanne