The Rewards of Routine

I am not an organizer. I can do meticulous work. I can proceed through a project step-wise. I can organize others in their work. But, when it comes to my own stuff, well--remember that office I was going to get cleaned up as I started the New Year?

I've just sat down to this after an almost 2 hour expedition Sunday evening. Somehow the thought came to me around 7:10 that I should probably locate all the tax stuff I had assembled late last month and get it ready to be copied and mailed off.  First piece of advice: Don't dig into the important stuff on a Sunday evening when all you really want to do is have a hot drink, maybe soak in the tub, and go to bed. Second: When you get something  ready to go-- send it!

After going to pick the folder up off the kitchen table, where I thought I had left it a couple of weeks back, I soon found it was nowhere to be found among the scattered pieces of mail and a couple of newspapers there on the table. Hmm. That's weird.  Within a moment, that feeling started to rise up from my gut. A quick rifle through a few assorted stacks of (important) papers on the counter and same result: no luck. My stomach started to churn and I started to feel a bit lightheaded. Looking back at the table I almost passed out as I recalled pitching a large stack of newspapers off that table just a few days ago-- straight to the recycling guy. No way!! 

Next stop: down the hall to the office. I checked the file cabinet (the tax files would have been a good place to leave it). Then I remembered: I didn't want to leave that folder out on the kitchen table when I would be gone to Arizona for a few days. Now I got my Lucille Ball on and started looking under counters, in drawers that are almost never used, among bookshelves. Nothing. I'm starting to need a cane to stay upright.

Next stop: In the car and down the road to my clinic office. I looked everywhere and even circled back twice, each time to check one more obscure place I may have left that folder.  Now the "F word" is becoming audible. I'm trying to think of just how I'm going to replace and reassemble all those loose pieces of data in the next 4 weeks. I know it can be done but, G@# D*&^#$*@! anyway!!

Returning home I did the only logical thing: I carefully retraced my steps. Just like a scene from a Disney movie, there was my folder.  Everything was there but the little fairy that had returned it to the file rack on my office desk.

I'm sure my bodily functions will have returned to normal by the time this goes online. Lesson number 3: put things where they belong. Lesson number 4: Get rid of papers you are done with or don't need. Always, every time.  And while you're at it-- clean up your damn office!