Organizing Life

I’ve been on sort of a kick the past many months to organize my life, trying to get stuff done more quickly and help kick my lifelong habit of procrastination, laziness, and general lack of any organization.

I’ve always enjoyed organizing things, which is weird because it doesn’t really seem like it would fit my personality. But I am the type that will organize, arrange, and re-organize my DVD collection over and over again. When I was a teenager I spent many hours organizing Magic cards, Star Wars cards, CDs, tapes, and more plus I would always buy backpacks and stuff with a ton of pockets so that I could organize which would go in what pocket and all that. I’m a little obsessive under the surface.

Several months ago I triple-booked myself for 3 different things one Sunday morning, I knew it was time to start being more organized with my schedule. First I bought a day planner at Target, which worked for about 2 days. I found myself really enjoying filling out all these little pages of information but the thing was just too large and cumbersome to carry around with me so it was never around when I needed to write down a date.

Then I thought a PDA would be the cure-all for me, so I decided on a model (HP iPaq rx3115) and started to save up a few hundred to get it. In my “let’s save money” phase I was casually researching pda stuff and happened upon the mention of a Moleskine notebook, which I quickly found a deep affinity for (as you will likely see in future postings) as a way to write down thoughts and ideas on the go.

I finally saved up enough to buy my PDA and it was great, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with the included PIMs (Personal Information Management software) so I purchased a software upgrade, which worked perfect. Unfortunately, then I had to carry around a PDA, Moleskine, Fisher Space Pen (for the moleskine), iPod, lighter, cell phone, keys, and wallet. So now I’ve eliminated the PDA (probably to sell on eBay eventually) and I’m attempting to do all of my day planning with a combination of my Moleskine and another productivity piece I use - my Backpack which lets me set up reminders that will call my cell phone at specified times and gives me a nice place to plan out blog ideas.

I wonder where this obsession with organization comes from? I get this idea that I could be doing so much more of something else if I could just figure out the quick easy way to do what I already have to. I think I’m getting more organized - but I don’t know if I’m getting any more done.

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