Obsessive need to Organize

When I was young, my obsessive need to organize only took hold when my mother made me clean my room.

yes - "made me".

I have only two methods, Do it right or don't do it at all.

So when time was lacking, don't do it at all became the preferred method.

I now have Maria coming twice a week. This relieves me of the "don't do it at all" guilt that I go through. It also enables me to live in my happy little home without the stress of major upkeep.

She's worth every penny.

But every so often ( usually the week she is coming), I get into this pick up the house routine that is more than just clean off the surfaces of the mail and what not ( that takes 15 minutes tops!). I end up organizing my bookshelves (now they look neat and orderly and I've discovered that I need more!) and went through the 9 zillion catalogues that I have received and pulled the pages out that are important to me and put them in a box. I filed my important papers and discovered that the file cabinet needs major revamping. I am seriously going to have to remove everything and redo it.

What makes this unusual from when I was a child, is that now, I can look at that file cabinet, knowing full well the disaster area it has become ( more music than files and its' not really using the best system. ) and walk away due to time constraints, but put it on the to-do list to not be overlooked on a weekend somewhere. I used to lock myself in my room for 4-8 hours and when I was done, every drawer was re-lined with shelf paper., every clothing item was refolded and sorted by color, the desk was re-organized to suit my latest projects, my closet tidied up to accommodate the seasonal clothing. I would organize my jewelry box, my bathroom, my sitting room. This is my "do it right" mode.

My room most of my life was a mess. Largely due to my ability to "drop" tasks that have little or no importance to the project at hand. That project back then, was life. I was as busy then as I am now. Maybe more so. So "don't do it at all" was more the mode than "do it right".

Hence my mother "MADE ME" clean my room.

It was a source of comedy in our house, my mom would send both my brother and I to clean up our rooms. He would be done in 15 minutes. I would be done in 4-8 hours. the difference was my room was a clean as clean could be - literally. My brother? Don't open the closet..... it's an avalanche waiting to happen.

So I have learned how to combat my natural urge to start a job and finish it "properly". well, not combat really, more like redefine what properly means for the time I have allotted to the job. Tonight's job I had allotted 2 hours for and at an hour and half I had papers and catalogues all over the floor. So after filing, and seeing the disarray there, it occurred to me that that is a second job not an inclusive part of the first and should be done at another time. I do have to go to be tonight as I am working in the morning!