I spent some time over the past couple of weekends trying to put an office into order. It’s a terribly comfortable place to sit and write (sunlit room with an amazing ergo chair), but sometimes I become too accustomed to the mess that accumulates around me.
  I like to know where everything is, and believe it is always within reach. Most of the time it is never where I want it when I need it.
  So, this was a meaningful attempt to clear clutter from the desktop and remove excess material from the shelves. There were plenty of well-used journals, books I’ve read but once, and the ones I have yet to get around to. Then there are those scraps of paper, or ideas, I have not done anything with. Important, yes, but there they sit. They take up space.
  It takes time to collect and a lot of waiting to determine the value of things which seemed crucial, or interesting, upon acquisition. Months, or years, later you have to decide whether to discard, put back on the shelf, or in a drawer (out of sight, out of mind).
  I can be a hoarder, mostly of memories, of little things deemed of sentimental value. I see worth slightly more than purpose.
  I’ve tried to put things back on the right shelf, or into a space they can sit purposefully until useful.
  Sadly, the order will not remain as it is, or as it should be. I’m sure.
  Knowing myself as well as I do (or care to admit), this attempt at organization will go off the tracks as it usually does. In the process I may have discovered a thing or two, perhaps, or made a deeper promise to myself to become more orderly. But, surely soon I will be seduced by a new concept, an easier method, or a time-saving alternative.
  Still I try to become more organized; order is the least I can ask of myself.

11/26/2018                                                j.g.l.