My Mental Cartography

With the holiday looming, I'm trying to prepare my desk for my absence, which involves consoling it in the form of tidy arrangements and dusted surfaces.

In general, my manner of organization (to the extent it can be identified as such) has tended to fall into the creative category. That is, my desk space is a series of swelling stacks and piles of documents and books for which my mind has mapped the relative location of each item. This mental cartography provides a workable sense of which strata any given item resides.

Periodically -- usually in association with project milestones -- it is necessary to sift through the various paper spires and act as a sort of compiler to identify that which can be shredded and to condense the multiple stacks into as few as possible.

However, because of my additional responsibility as an archivist in a long-term project, I've become increasingly aware of the benefits to a well organized file structure. And I'm made a genuine effort to apply these files across the breadth of all my projects.

It hasn't been as simple as the flip of a switch, my innate organization style isn't something that can just toggle to a new structure. But, I'm trying to transition and blend where beneficial -- and do so at a comfortable rate.

Something else that has heretofore been foreign to my way of thinking is the daily list. Each morning, I've been listing a series of tasks for the day on my dry-erase board, marking them off as they are concluded. Though counterintuitive to me, I can honestly say I've seen the benefit of keeping a focus within an eight- or twelve-hour day -- preventing, to some extent, a propensity to launch off on a tangential task that may not be as urgent or time-sensitive.

I guess my contrarian nature has resisted when someone announces that what I should do is make these lists or create these files or use this application to establish and track the minutiae of a complex project. I guess, as other things in life, it can't be thrust upon you. It really only takes hold at the point of personal revelation. Being told something, or having it imposed upon me, hasn't traditionally worked well for me. My reaction has always been to distinguish that what works well for the anal retentive (and makes them happy) will not necessarily work well for rest of the workforce. And I still think that is true. However, it seems I'm drifting a little closer to the dark side.