I got this adorable little scanner last week. It was one of the cheapest ones and it had great reviews and PINK HEARTS!
As always, I am trying to get my act together and get things organized around here. The entropy has been especially powerful lately and I am ready to fight back. One of the ways I am waging war is to move as much of our paper into digital files as I can. I haven’t bothered digging back into our file cabinet, and I may never mess with that, but the new paper that comes in the house… Pink Heart Scanner, baby.
I sat in front of the computer desk, papers piled so high they partially blocked the monitor, and a memory came floating back to me. For at least two years in grade school, 4th grade and 5th grade to be specific, as the teachers passed out the end of the year awards and certificates, I was handed the dubious honor of “Messiest Desk Award.”
Hmph, I thought. I was gifted (or cursed?) from the start. It’s a battle I am fighting even to this day.
But when I told my husband about it, he was shocked that they would do something like that to a little kid. Then I felt a little like Charlie (is that his name?) in “Flowers for Algernon.” Oh. They are laughing at my expense, not with me.
Dwelling on those events doesn’t help me at all. The real points are: What does it tell me about myself then and now? And what can I do about that?
I have very clear memories of things I thought about as a child. As an introvert, I did a lot of thinking. I can remember specific thoughts from when I was very, very young (4 or so). This has been invaluable to me as a parent. When I am willing to try, it helps me to understand a situation from my child’s view. What I remember about the whole messy desk era, which eventually turned into a messy locker in high school, is that I always felt rushed. There never seemed to be enough time for me to remember exactly where something went, put it there, and get out the next thing. I was easily overwhelmed by a string of tasks like that, especially when there was time pressure involved.
Hmm, nothing has changed about that. My brain is moving on to the next thing before I can finish the one I am working on. I am always worried about not having the time to finish the task I am working on, so I rush through it.
Two behaviors are helping me with this:
1. Let go of the time. So what if I am a little late? Because I am always so worried about being late, I end up chronically early anyway. So there is a little time to spare.
2. Get a better idea of how long tasks actually take. Sure, they can take longer than planned, like when I go to clean a toilet (2 minutes, start to finish) and find that there is a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet and the trash can has gone missing so I can’t get it out without going on a hunt for a receptacle of some sort. It might take longer, yes. But it might not.
I am also trying to help my children with this problem by actively showing them how to put things away, how to organize their stuff in a way that makes sense to both myself and them. Being in charge of a desk and all the stuff in it can be a tough job. You have to prioritize what is important and what is not. You have to know what you will need and when. These are complex thought processes to expect kids to just figure out on their own. My children’s school seems to work with the kids, showing them how to manage their papers and possessions, but they still need help managing it when they get home. I was always the kid who wondered how everyone learned all this stuff. I could learn all kinds of things from an interesting book, but organizing a fourth grade desk wasn’t in any of my books.
One of the principles I am teaching my kids is to make things easier to put away than they are to get out. Shoes, for example, can be kept in a big bin in their room. They are (slightly) more likely to be put away that way. It is worth the price of taking a few more moments to be able to get them out. Their shoe bin looks a little like my old messy desk, but with shoes instead of paper.
I will always deal with clutter to some degree, because I live with my head in the clouds and can fail to see it happening. But I know that about myself now, and can work on the self discipline to counteract that at least a little bit.