Getting organized L.A.C.

[Mike Arman]

Innocent little comment: "and knew where I had put my calipers (in the
drawer where they belong!)."

Hoo boy - got a number of responses to that, "But can you find your keys?",
and "maybe you know where mine are?" and similar . . . definitely touched a
nerve there, or something!


That tells me there are a number of us Audifans who are, well, perhaps not
as well organized as we would like to be. Or maybe as we think we are.


Now truthfully, I fit both categories - I am NOT as well organized as I'd
like to be, and probably not as well organized as I think I am.


But here's how *I* try to keep my various projects, tasks, papers, and
general gar-bage sorted out and where I can (mostly) lay my hands on it
when I need it (like the calipers above, which caused such a fuss.)



Rule #1. TSO. Throw Sh*t Out. If it is junk, if it is busted, if it is
unrepairable, if the vehicle it fits was sold 27 years ago, GET RID OF IT.
That's half the battle - if you know you're never, ever going to use
something again, why keep it around? This especially goes for paperwork -
invitations to events that have already happened, last week's (or last
month's) newspapers, ads for stuff you are not going to buy, solicitations
for credit cards you are not going to apply for - throw it ALL OUT.

This was brought home to me very strongly a few years ago. I helped a
friend clean out the apartment of his deceased brother - he'd lived there
at least 50 years, and never threw ANYTHING away. I'm not a big guy, and I
had to creep into the place walking sideways, hunched over. I have never
seen such a pile of sheer crap in my life - here's a plastic grocery bag,
inside another, inside another, inside another, and when we get all the way
in, there's an empty cardboard box that had chocolates in it back in 1964.
We found carefully wrapped envelopes, tied with string - car payment
records from 1947! The car has long since departed for the great junkyard
in the sky, but the payment coupons and canceled checks are still there,
neatly in order. Now I know why they say "you can't take it with you."
Reason - they don't have room for all that crap either.

When I got home, I looked at all MY crap, and decided that at least a third
of it really WAS crap, and promptly discarded it - and you know what? I
don't miss it in the least.

Rule #2. Like to Like. All the paint goes on one shelf, together. All the
tools go in the toolbox. All the clothes go in the closet. You get the
idea. That way, when I need to paint something, I can go directly to where
ALL the paint is - and I know at once if I have the color I want - no
scrounging around for hours, turning up paint cans in the strangest places
- and most of them will be dried out and garbage by the time I do find them
- just crap, taking up space.

Rule #3. Don't ever put anything DOWN - put it AWAY. That keeps clutter
from accumulating in the first place, and makes rule #2 that much easier.

There are only four things you can do with something - file it (store it),
act on it (cook it, use it up), discard it, or defer it - and the last one
is where the danger is - if you put something DOWN, you may never get back
to it, and it can get buried under other things that were just put down
"for a moment" - that's how piles of crap accumulate!

Rule #4. If it isn't mine, why am I storing it? If someone brings me
something to fix, when I'm done with it, I want it GONE - I don't want to
warehouse other people's crap, I have enough of my own.

Rule #5. Be merciless in applying the first four rules. We don't live in a
scarcity economy any more, but we act as though we do. We aquire,
accumulate, store and squirrel away things we are NEVER going to use,
things that have NO value, just plain STUFF - 8 track players, Apple II
computers, National Geographic magazines, too good to throw out, but not
good enough to keep. Trust me - throw it out. Take it out to the curb the
day before trash pickup - and you'll be amazed how quickly the stuff
disappears - someone else will hoard it forever, but it won't be me.

Perhaps I have a bit too much time on my hands this afternoon, but what the
hey.



Best Regards,

Mike Arman