Are you one of those naturally organized people? Do you need a plan and a calendar and a schedule? Do you fall apart even with those aids?

Are you a mess? Tell us why. Confess it all, baby.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Answers

Oh yeah. Totally. I suppose I NEED a plan and a calendar and a schedule, but I've never ever been able to impose a schedule on myself. I can only do one thing repeatedly, and if I try to add something else, I lose it entirely.

For example. I was seventeen before I managed to get through an entire week without my mother reminding me to brush my teeth before bed. Now, don't misunderstand, it's not that I don't brush my teeth, it's just that I was eight before I could remember to brush them every morning. Then when I was twelve I got braces so I was brushing them all the damned time, yet always forgot to brush them before bed (mainly because I brush after meals, so gratuitous brushing for no good reason never really stuck). Eventually I got it down, but now that I live on my own, I probably only remember to brush before bed four times a week. I still brush every morning though. Am I a disgusting person for that? I often wonder.

Let's see- in other areas of my life, I absolutely can not do things on time. I am the kind of person that if I get a task (such as paying the bills) I have to do it right at that second, or else it won't get done for weeks. I finally(!) hired a housekeeper, but she only comes every other week, so in between I'm screwed. I can't keep house. It's not in my nature.

The ironic part is, when it comes to something I love or have a natural knack for, I'm the most together, organised person I know. I guess it's a matter of priority. I've often thought that it would be nice to hire my mother to be my mother while I do my "important" stuff like watching Disney movies and making websites. She can do all the mom stuff like worry if my clothes are matching and scheduling my dentist appointments, and I can do what I'M good at.

So far, she's not falling for it.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I have a finite number of things which I schedule religiously. Everything else gets done on an ad-hoc basis. So, I eat, go to work, bathe, and exercise like clockwork. Everything else is gravy. I tried to schedule more things, but I started to go crazy, particularly since my wife also schedules things for me to do, and her schedule supercedes anything I plan, except for the big 4 listed above. Oh, and I usually sleep every day, too, but I figure that doesn't take much scheduling, unless I've got an obsession for a new computer game, like Pharaoh, or Unreal, or Baldur's Gate, or Darkstone... oooh, Diablo II's coming out soon!

So, Beth, a couple tips which might help you: point out to the unhelpful nimrods who order the donuts that most such places also stock muffins, and a few even stock bagels. Sure, if donuts are from hell, then muffins are the neighbor of the beast, but at least they aren't sugar-glazed and covered in chocolate. Bagels are better if you can stand to eat them without cream cheese or butter.

I haven't seen the Tae Bo tapes, but, assuming that it is possible for you to learn the moves eventually and get past the klutz-kicking-her-dog-in-the-head stage, just keep doing the moves at a slower pace and ignore the pace on screen, unless it also makes you dizzy to work out at a different pace to the music (think of it as slow-dancing to head-banging music; it's kinda kinky if it works right, but you get smacked a lot if it doesn't). There is not one reputable martial art in the world which assumes all their moves can be learned in one easy lesson, and any decent instructor will gladly give beginning students all the time they need to remember or learn the moves at a slow speed before moving onto the muscle-straining fast stuff. Hurt students are not training students.

Also, you shouldn't have much problem with kicking the dog in the head since he's taller now...

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

God am I ever! I function really well with tight deadlines - but nothing gets done until one of them is looming. Despite this time spent bumming around I always seem to be too busy to sort out my office in work.

I should draw up a schedule for housework but I don't so I dpend hours watching crap tv that I wouldn't usually watch as it gives me an excuse not to clean and polish.

If I don't have an exercise schedule I cheat - or (and this is really pathetic)I spend so long arguing back and forth with myself all day about will I go to the gym, or go swimming or go home that I end up feeling like I've exercised and just going home.

Boy, oh boy can I sympathise with Beth on Tae Bo. I was finally able to get it over here(in Ireland) so I ran to the phone as fast as my little legs could carry me while my family looked on thinkingI was mad to buy something from an infomercial. Then the tapes arrived. Pamie must have the most incredible balance - cos I keep tripping myself up, or hitting myself or just stopping looking and goinf 'What the?!? Sue won't stay in the same room as me oncec Billy comes on she heads for the door!

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I am completely not an organized person, but I have organized moments. For instance, I'm running about ten days late on paying the bills lately, but I created and organized a spreadsheet showing how much money I saved by shopping at Sam's last week instead of at the neighborhood grocery store ($88!). Of course, those savings will be wiped out when we run out of food in a few weeks and end up ordering out three or four nights in a row before I can get my ass in gear and get more groceries.

On second thought, it's my motivation that's lacking, not my organization.

http://www.bitchypoo.com/bitchypoo.html

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

The plan: Go to law school at 9. Stay at law school till 5 or 6 and work.

The reality: Go to law school at 9. Oh! No ones on the computers. Thank god I can check my POP mail from hotmail. Wonder if anyone wrote. Nope. I'll go to class. --hour later-- Time to study. Hey look! No ones on the computers, wonder if Xeney updated. Yeah! She did. Hmm... Hot Jeremy loving. Wow! Patrick updated too! Hmm... Hmm...I could use a cheeseburger...Better study Property... Wait!... online comics. Love online comics. I wish I was clever as Gary Trudea ... Hmmm ... How's the litigation with openDVD going... that's law related ... it even counts as studying ... Hey Bobofett's updated ... Damn the browser froze ... freaking Netscape .. I could use a cheeseburger ... Hmm ... Should go get food ... I can study while eating ... Damn they gave me American cheese, I wanted cheddar, I bety I'd get cheese all over my Property book ... Better wait till I'm back to school ... back in the library .. hey! One of the computer's is free ... wonder if I got email ... damn ... no email ... bet if I asked Xeney about International Shoe she'd make fun of me, I can smell your feet from here! ... I should study Civ Pro. ... hmm ... online crossword puzzels! Can't beat that ... Smell your feet ... I should wash my clothes tonight...

and on, and on, and on.

So yeah, I'm a mess.

Byrne

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Oh, man, am I ever glad I didn't have internet access when I was in law school.

I vaguely remember International Shoe. It's good that you didn't ask me.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I'm usually pretty organized. But that's not what I wanted to tell you. You CAN do Tae Bo. You don't HAVE to do it as fast as they do. You can do it in half time. For every two kicks, you can do one kick till you build up to fast. AND, on those back kicks? You can hold on to a chair for balance. Billy will NOT think you're a lop, honest! Neither will I... I can't do Tae Bo anymore, because I can't raise my damn leg or stand on it (but that's due to incompetent orthopedic surgeons, thank you very much). But YOU, Xeney? You CAN DO IT! Good luck! Anyway, no, I'm not a mess. I make detailed lists and stick to them. And donuts have not passed my lips in, well, years. Dammit...

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

*I'M* a mess, but my clinic is so organised they call me Dr Fuss- Ass. I only have time to keep one thing totally under control, therefore it's NOT my hair, my wardrobe, my exercise plan, my BF, my bills or even my pets, it's my professional life. Actually I like it that way cause the sickly animals and their families benefit from this control freakiness only when they need it, whereas my two and four footed family members might not appreciate being led around by the nose on a daily basis.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I am, indeed, an unqualified mess. "Abysmal" does not begin to describe my housekeeping habits. I usually do laundry only when I literally do not have a stitch of clothing (other than a suit, which I never wear) clean enough that I would even consider putting it on my body. I have been known to go days peanut butter off a knife or plain white rice with soy sauce because I never get around to going to the store and I don't have enough money to eat out. The only things that keep me from falling apart in the lab are the alarms on my wristwatch, alarms that remind me when experiments need to be tended, when I need to be in a meeting or seminar, and when to go home. (Yes, I've gotten distracted and forgotten to GO HOME at the end of the day. I'd usually realize sometime ~8 or 9 pm that I'd meant to go home at 6:30.) On days when I'm too disorganized in the morning to put on my watch before leaving, I accomplish very little.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Umm... there's supposed to be the word "eating" between "days" and "peanut butter" above. Sorry.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Hey Beth -- just 'cos you're not on a diet, doesn't mean you can't have an eating plan:)

Though of course, since I'm perennially a mess too, my record-keeping on what I'm eating fluctuates like crazy.

However, keeping a record helps remind me -- oh yeah, I did eat like, five extra cookies, whoops!

Anyway -- me=mess. Not through trying and trying to devise systems of organization, but because I don't have the energy to run after Sabs and keep him in line too.

It's all I can do to keep myself on the straight and narrow.

So when he drops all the bills on the table in heap, it's no _wonder_ things go missing and don't get paid ...

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

This issue is one of my New Year's resolutions, actually. I decided not to be a resolution-freak this year, imposing a crazy, impossible regime upon myself. But I do want to be more organized about housekeeping and bill-paying and all the other things that are supposedly part of adulthood. So I'm doing it incrementally. Making up lists and keeping calendars definitely helps.

I was waaaaaay more organized - almost fanatically so - in college, when I was Little Miss Activities. I was on committees, I tutored, I attended cultural events, I was a Hall Advisor. When I look back at my daily planners from that time, I'm amazed that I did all that and had the energy to attend classes and write papers.

Now my days are frighteningly similar to what Byrne describes, only I work in publishing. So substitute "I ought to call that author" for "I ought to study" and you've got a template for my weekdays. It's ridiculous. No stamina. No attention span. Can you contract ADHD at age 24? I wonder.

I'm hoping that a return to grad school, in a field which excites me, will help ease the transition into being better-organized once more. It's a hell of a slippery slope, though. Like those black diamond courses at ski resorts. And I'm just a little snow bunny.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I am the Mother of All Messes. I have tried, and tried and not tried but I am still a spastic, lazy, start something and don't finish it, dreamer. I'm pathetic.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I always have a Plan. My problem is getting everyone else in line with the Plan. Plans are good. I worship the Plan, but not everyone shares in the worship of a good Plan.

I personally feel that all people should leave sacrifices on the altar of the Plan. Because,(holy crap, I'm going to say this again) as George Peppard of the A-Team used to say,"I love it when a good plan comes together."

In full-on pregnancy mode, there have been a lot of beautiful Plans, which often fall apart in the face of the unPlanned pregnancy and exhaustion. Deep in the throes of nesting, however, I have finally begun to mold the man to my Plan. Muhahaha! I Plan to take over the world!

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Just FYI (cause I know every one is waiting with bated breath)- International Shoe stands for the fact that if you fuck around in one place long enough, someone will be able to sue you for it.

Put that on your exam.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I am a mess waiting to happen. Fortunately, I have a wife who keeps me relatively in check. I'm the one who screws up the checkbook and the bills. Now she does them. It sets a terrible precident. If I screw up enough stuff, soon I'll be relegated to killing spiders (something that she just can't do) and being adorable. I could live with that.

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000

I used to be a mess. Now I'm just "untidy". (Little actual difference; just sounds better.)

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000

I'm organized in some ways, totally unorganized in others. My bill paying is completely fucked up. Luckily the man in my life is very organized and will help me with my bills without being a jerk about it.

If it's something I have to do every month, somehow I have trouble remembering it. I have an online calendar that I use religiously, but some things keep slipping through the cracks.

I'm very organized with things that are sceduled for some date. It's the recurring tasks that kill me.

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000

Yes, yes, yes, I am organizationally challenged!

I work best on semi-conscious autopilot mode: stumble out of bed, stimble down stairs, feed cat, fix coffee, set out vitamin pills for my wife, pack her lunch, open door to garage so cat can patrol, pour two cups of coffee, let cat back in, position stool by kitchen window and open curtain for cat to check out back yard, put bagel in toaster, etc., etc., everything goes fine... but change the routine in the least way and I get confused and forget stuff...

I don't like regimentation but if I don't regiment myself I get lost and everything becomes a mess... my mind just wanders too far astray...

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000