organizing

I've been slowly organizing my life since I got back from Res (which in my head sounds like The Res, as in Reservation, but whatever).

I've always been sort of a whim-based person. I grew up not liking schedules and hating to-so lists because they restrict the options: I can't do whatever I want because I have to be here at this one specific time* and I have to do this one specific thing, followed by all the other things that need to get done today. I blame it on being an air sign: you try to keep the wind from blowing where it will and see how angry it gets! I never did anything I didn't want to do until it became unavoidable. Even now, I tend to not plan things and to put off the things I don't like, like housework and homework and suchike.

But as I've gotten older, though, everything is becoming more unavoidable, and I've come to rely on lists to keep my brain from flying apart in a million different directions (the air-sign in me again: all the molecules want to be equally as far apart from all the others as they can!). I have official to-do lists for the week, and long lists that are part additional to-do, part things I want to know, things I need to follow up on or remember to check out, things I need to get or find, things I want out of life, ideas I need to remember... pretty much anything that needs to be recalled goes on the secondary lists throughout the week. And I love my schedule because somewhere along the line, I had a perceptual flip: they don't limit what I can do, they define what I have to do so I can actually physically see all the time I have to do what I want!

I cleaned out my Book (where all this junk is supposed to stay) yesterday, and realized I've been keeping the lists and collecting worksheets to track all my projects for almost two whole years now, and the folders for each month have gotten fatter, but my life has gotten freer and calmer and better: I hardly ever overdraw my bank account anymore, paperwork gets done on time, bills get paid when they're due. I found DIY Planner and The Organized Writer and they've done miracles in my dysfunctionally-right-brained world.

But it wasn't enough when I had to start being a full-time writer and a full-time student again, too. So I've rearranged. First thing in the morning, I write, and at least one day out of the week is devoted to reading, as well as a minimum of a chapter from something required before bed. And I've been physically cleaning up. J, a new friend from the Res, pointed me in the direction of FlyLady.com, and I'm not anywhere near the devotion I need for that, yet, but I've been doing little things she suggests along the way, and it's starting to work in just little ways that make me feel like I'm getting somewhere. I keep getting amazed at all the time I have between these two systems.

And it's getting better. I think I can do this. Eventually (and I think this will be a sooner sort of eventual, since I'll be all alone in the house for most of a year soon), I'll have everything in it's place, physically and mentally, and my life will make sense. Which is all for the best, since I'm finally devoted to getting it somewhere good and getting on with it.