I've heard the idea of trying to do something for 30 days. It could be exercising, or eating fruit, or meditating. What I've decided to do is, for the next 30 days, work every day on getting my stuff better organized. By stuff here I mean pieces of paper, books, pens, clothing, computer cables. Everything that I have in my physical possession. This is obviously a major weakness of mine. I have books in the car that shouldn't be there. I have piles of papers that I don't know what to do with. So for the next thirty days, starting today, I will work a bit every day on going through those papers, throwing things away I don't need. Eventually, this effort will have positive benefits for my scholarly work as well.
You might want to try this with whatever your main weakness is. Maybe every piece of paper is in place for you, but you have some other problem to work on. Maybe it's time management, or money-spending. After 30 days, see if you've effected a permanent change for the better.
3 comments:
Jonathan,
Have you seen Julie Morgenstern's book Organizing from the Inside Out? One of the suggestions she makes that I like is to start with just one corner of a room. One semester, I decided to just organize my teaching materials in one corner of my office. Once I had done that, I did my service/admin stuff. Then, my research stuff - a bigger job - was easier.
I haven't seen that, but the approach makes sense. I could start with my car and get it completely organized, glove compartment, etc... That I could manage in a less than an hour.
Sounds like a plan. Morgenstern uses the analogy of a kindergarten classroom. I took that to my office and made an area just for teaching; an area for admin; and an area for research. I had three desks, so that worked out well. We'll see how I do in my new office, which I haven't seen yet!
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