Hunting The Muse

Life Maintenance Space

See, I've got too much crap in my office right now. I want to clean it up. I use my office to work on projects and clients, and also to do research.

But it's too full because I've been so busy, and because I'm not organized enough to have a perfect place for everything. Things are starting to pile up like health insurance claim forms (somewhat work-related since I write them off), and brokerage statements (which host my work-related retirement accounts), etc. I haven't scaled well.

So I start thinking in terms of themes. And really, I feel like I've got my Life Maintenance too mixed in with my Work Stuff. I've got course catalogs mixed in with client notes. So I'd like to separate it. I thought about having a separate life maintenance space, where I'd hook up my laptop to be able to pay bills, do Quicken, keep track of home organization stuff, and free up my office for just work stuff.

But here's where real life sucks in a way that databases don't. I can't multi-categorize. See, some of my life maintenance stuff is clearly work stuff. Like, where do I keep my business checkbook? I first thought that would go into my office. But then, what about my business receipts? This is where it gets tricky. Does all business financial stuff go into my new Life Maintenance space? Or is my Life Maintenance space more for purely personal matters? Grr. I don't know how secretaries do it. I hate these kinds of choices.

I guess I just need to pick one. I'll say all financial stuff, even business financial stuff, would go to my Life Maintenance place.

But then. What about invoices? Etc. You can see my problem. See, I'm not messy because I'm a messy person. I'm messy only because my organizational standards are so impossible in the real world that I just spread everything out into a spectrum to approximate what I need. It's actually extraordinarily organized, and it's not my fault that the real world can't handle it. Posted by Curt at March 1, 2003 09:32 PM