piles and stacks

whenever i get in a blue mood, my organizational skills (or perhaps motivation is the issue) tend to go to pot. as a result items don't get put away in drawers or on shelves or in folders, but rather, they accumulate in piles and stacks on any clear surface that is available. sometimes they are neatly arranged; often they are not -- the bluer the mood, the greater the disarray.

this would be fine if i were a person who functions well in clutter. you know the type. it looks like their office space was just hit by a tornado, yet if you ask them if they have a copy of the memo issued two months ago about the latest policy change, they go right to the middle of one of their piles of paper and pull it right out and hand it to you. i'm not one of those types of people. if something is buried in a stack, it is unlikely that i will have any idea where it is. during these times, my personal and work spaces would be great places to hide anything you don't want found for a good, long time -- christmas presents, subpoenas, old boyfriends, you name it.

eventually, no matter how down i may feel, i get to the state where i have to get some organization back. i'm in that frame of mind right now with my office. now i don't quite have the energy to go through and fully organize, but i have been working with a stop-gap system until my mood improves. i'm going through a kind of triaging of the stacks and putting them in one of three groupings -- stuff that can be trashed now, stuff that i probably should keep if i stay in this job but can be trashed if i don't, and stuff i want to keep no matter what.

it's working pretty well so far. however, going through the various piles of files, magazines, brochures and loose papers has been like watching my work life flash before my eyes. there are moments of, "i remember this project, this is good work," and "this meeting/event/activity was such a joke," and even, "i wondered what happened to this material." while it's been nice to rediscover things that i thought were lost or to be reminded of the good times i've had in this role, it also has been kind of sad to see that despite all my best efforts so little has actually changed for the better. in fact, i feel like the whole environment has devolved back to an even worse state than when i got here. then again, i do have a tendency to see the glass half empty rather than half full.

ah well, hopefully, the desired change will be official soon, and with that a lift in my mood will take place. then i can really get in there and organize things for the next phase of life. that does remind me though to get to that next phase will require a move -- another activity not high on my list of things to do. well that's fodder for another entry. right now, i need to get back to shoveling through the flotsam and jetsam that is the product of my current work life.