On A Holy Mission of Organization

I've left for the Organizational Crusades, in case you were wondering. Hopefully one of my brothers does not seize power whilst I am gone and oppress the kingdom.

Right now I'm trying to approach this organizational struggle with more critical analysis than usual. My oft-used strategy is to live mired in disorganization for awhile, then decide that needs to change, go to some place like Office Max and glare at the options wondering which would be best, select one, and bring it home and use it for a week without significant results. This new plan of action involves more abstract theorizing before just going with what strikes me in the heat of organizational distress.

And we all know I am *very* good at abstract theorizing. Gotta use the talents the Good Lord gave us, after all.

I think the major key to organization that I often fail to observe is that of discipline. Put things where they are supposed to go. File things. Take the time to sort the mail every day instead of piling it up over a few days and having bills get lost in the mess. Open bills when they come, pay them when they're opened. Take receipts promptly and put them together, don't let them sit in the 'purse' (my bag Hauly hates being called a purse, even if that's what he is) for months. I am not an overly messy person, but I am one that lacks the discipline of OCD organization. ...Such serious expending of effort to organize is *supposedly* a characteristic of we INTJ types, which is one of the reasons I am a little suspicious of that diagnosis. I love being organized; organiz-ing, not so much.

But then there is a question of time. One of the major reasons I don't often engage in the discipline of organizing is the amount of time it takes. I mean seriously, I'll put up with piles here and there if that means an extra hour of sleep every day this week. So in my mind, good organization is also something that saves time. For example, the idea of numbering every receipt, entering in that number and various other pertinent informations from the receipt by hand into a spreadsheet, and then writing formulas to come up with purchase analysis is far too much time and effort for me to expend on it all. Faithful Readers may recall that I quit clipping coupons entirely, because it got to the point where I was spending two hours every weekend for the purpose of saving, maximum, ten dollars, and usually less than that. When I look back on my life and see the many ways I wasted time, I will at least be proud of the fact that the activity of Clipping Coupons will not be counted among them.

So to me, good organization has immediate and obvious connections to the time it saves. It's like that tenuous-but-all-important connection between work and significance we have. Why do something if there doesn't seem to be a point? Why organize something if it doesn't seem it shall save any time? It seems silly too to start spouting about conspiracy theories concerning organization, but I think there's a grain of truth to it all-- often times it's difficult to see the payoff to putting in time to organize something, and only a lot of time commitment into the process does it become apparent whether or not the scheme is working. I think there are an awful lot of methods of organization out there that haven't been well-thought through in terms of thoughtput and time effectiveness, but are prevalent because they are what is available. Filing cabinets, for example. The bane of my existence is my 2.5 stacks of 'Important Documents' files. They are heavy, unwieldy, unpleasant to paw through, an effort to organize, require constant upkeep, and take up space. They also *encourage* me to save things I probably could throw away; though the little fearful packrat in my crys desperately every time I think to pitch something "But what if you need that at some point?!" I think, in all the time and years I have invested in my Important Document Files, I have perhaps needed something from their contents three or four times. And yet, I must keep them, just in case.

Because come on, these days we have instruction manuals and warranties and invoices and receipts and work orders and serial numbers and group numbers and limited liability clauses and thank-you notes and favorite recipes and everything is copied in triplicate and collated and every single piece must be present in order to make sure that warranty is honored. We have to keep the boxes of what we purchase half the time to not void warranties, for crying out loud. I'm going to need an entire room just to hold everything pretaining to my purchases here soon. Why not? I've already got boxes of receipts and a 'special' area of the garage where the packaging goes to float in a kind of 'holding formation' until years later when it's finally given permission to land in a garbage can. Often, months after the actual product has been disposed of.

Sorry. I think I've gotten a bit sidetracked into a rant about waste and our consumerist society. Next time, Gadget, next time.

So. Let's start with receipts, and just think about them for now. What do I need to save them for? Returning things, tracking purchases, and tax-related activities. In terms of returning things, what information do I need to know right away as I am searching for the receipt? The nature of the return policy, what method of payment. What information might be necessary to search for the receipt? The date, the store, the card used, the item in question. How can I create an efficient storage method for receipts that enables me to access what I need quickly, but also doesn't take a huge amount of time to upkeep?

My analysis took me to the environment of receipts. Where do they live? They are birthed at a register, travel around in plastic bags or purses, hang out in cars and on desks, and in general creep into all sorts of odd 'I'll-deal-with-them-later' places. The first task, therefore, is to prevent them from wandering off unattended by themselves on 'adventures'. More than there needing to be a place to put them to be organized, there needs to be a place for them when they are put in my hand directly after purchasing an item, a place that can transport them to their final destination without getting distracted. These are not passengers subject to free will and whimsy; receipts are to be treated as hostile cargo, wrangled and restrained all the way from holding cell to final prison.

So it seems to me there needs to be one designated place in the purse for them to go. The transport vehicle, if you will. It's going to need to be something a bit stronger than a basic envelope too, an envelope will get beaten and battered to bits by the ride. A thin index card box, perhaps. Hard plastic, nothing fragile, something that can take hard knocks but by the same token isn't going to be too big or bulky. There shouldn't be a buildup of receipts anyway; this is just what's getting them from point A to B. Point B being the car.

The car! A jungle offering amazing cover for the receipt resistance. Under seats, in glove compartments, under rugs, stashed in doors, the possibilities for hideouts are endless. Though the rebels are flushed out every three months or so when the car is cleaned, it seems more a treatment of a symptom than of the disease itself. So, what can we do? How about a box with divisions in it for filing? Again, no envelopes. Envelopes encourage anarchy. Sure, those receipts look all obedient, crammed together in that envelope, but inside they execute plans of dastardly disorganization. They don't file themselves in order. They don't line up, folding themselves into bizarre oragami-failed shapes. They stick to each other and face the wrong way, or else curl up upside-down. They are a fast shove at the outset, just stuff that uppity receipt in there, but then you have a bulging envelope of uncooperative receipts to fumble through if you need anything.

Clips, though. Not like paper clips, that's like a squirt gun when I need a bazooka. I'm talking about the ones with tension and springs in them. To clip a pile of receipts together with any amount of success, they need to have been forced into uniform line before the clipping.

And then we need some divisions. I say some because there is inherent danger in too many: thirty different categories of receipts is just overkill, and though it seems like a simple solution to just create a new category any time something doesn't seem to fit one, likely you'll end up with fifty categories of one receipt each. That crosses the line of too much time spent for minimal return, here. Sure, the danger of too few categories is confusion and lack of true organization. But this peril I think can be headed off by a more thoughtful choice of categories.

Like, think about it. What do I return most often? Clothes. Followed distantly by a grocery item. And I have a separate card for groceries and gas. So it makes sense therefore to have a category of Clothes, and a separate category for Groceries. But I never need to return gas. Or any pet food I buy. Or that loaf of bread I get at Panera. Take out doesn't need returned.

So here we have four categories: Groceries, Clothes, Gas, Purchased Food (in the sense that I buy a meal at a restaurant, not buy the ingredients to make the meal). What else is there? You can get into micro categories at this point-- hardware purchase, office supplies, gardening, photo development, drug store. Or we could just say Non-Grocery Goods, which all have about the same rate of return, that is, VERY LOW. Then we have doctor visits and car services, which tend to carry with them large invoice sheets along with their receipts; these are important not for returns ("Excuse me doctor! I want to exchange this liver, it's still under warranty!") but for documentation concerning wellness of both person and serviced machine. So these need their own special holding cell, one that can accommodate their large size. I happen to have a few thin legal-sized plastic case I bought in Japan that will do the job; one for the large invoices and the other for receipts to lay flat in, clipped into their bundles on their way home. Here's another way to think about this: I'm storing with the prisoners lying down face up, not wedged vertically into an accordian file or an envelope where it isn't clear precisely what they're up to.

Finally, the prison at home. The same sort of lay-flat conditions need to be there, but everyone needs easy access. So perhaps an individual small box for each category, stored on top of/alongside the pile of legal-sized receipts, namely Internet Orders. Medical/Service receipts ought to be filed separately into their folders. This final box needs to be not too very big, but large enough to fit the small boxes within it, and it will be this box that is stored away yearly once the taxes are done.

The handling of the receipts throughout this process too is key. At the register, there is a surprising amount of time to color-code a receipt; to dot it with a blue marker to denote 30-day return, a red one for no exchange, or a green one for store-credit only. At a red light, there is plenty of time to clip a receipt to its designated bundle. Walking in the door and dropping the shopping bags on the chair and then dropping the bundled receipts in their required boxes is nearly the same thing. Where is time commitment necessary? In the processing of the Service receipts, and in the occasional collecting of clips from the prison to put them back in the car for use. A couple minutes at the register counter to color-code and tuck firmly into the receipt box holding cell. A passing of time while waiting for a light to change in traffic. The car stays clean. The purse stays clean. The desk stays clean. The receipts fall in line. Divide, and conquer.

And that, my friend, is how you run an Organizational Crusade.

Current Tea: Mint Chocolate
Current Project: Felling the heathen Enemy of Disorganization