There's no Organization in Organization

Leading up to when I began college as well as during my first weeks there, I got it in my head that I would need to stay organized. I made several trips to Cost Plus World Market to buy items that I expected would help in this effort: collapsible boxes, a couple of baskets, wall-hanging containers. I lacked only one thing: knowing what I was trying to organize. As I sit here today, with those same items I purchased four years ago doing nothing but cluttering up my already cluttered bedroom, I am forced to acknowledge the futility of trying to get organized by focusing on the meta-organizational aspect of organization. That is, rather than spend so much time worrying about how I would stay organized at the beginning of college before even being disorganized, I should have just waited until stuff became vaguely disorganized and then began my efforts at staying organized.

As mundane as it seems, I think my shopping spree at the beginning of my college career and the over-preparedness and arguable misplacement of priorities it evidenced can be a metaphor for the mistakes that one makes in all types of organizing, be it people, things, or time. Rather than worry too much about how one might organize, rather than spend too much time on the existential aspects of putting things away, rather than buying too many containers or file cabinets or folders, or in human terms, rather than forming too many task forces or calling too many meetings, the most efficient, organized way to do something may be to just...do it.

And, in that vein, I should really clean my room.