Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Creature of Habit

I can be pretty scatterbrained. Time has a way of whizzing past when engaged in some activity. Creating and adhering to a schedule makes being where I need to be easier and less stressful.

Pre-smartphone, I set Google calendar to send me SMS notifications to give me a heads up about meetings or appointments. If I my dream job allowed me to just sit in front of my computer all day might, I would not have needed this. Unfortunately, at the time back-to-back meetings were fairly common for me. Once I got my first smartphone, the amount of notifications in my calendar bloomed. My life is a world of notifications about what to do when.

Most importantly I try to organize my environment such that I will have what I need when I need it. For example, I have five gym bags with a change of clothes, so I can toss several in the car and have them when I go to the gym after work.

Failing to have a bag probably means I will skip the gym. Going home to change means I get distracted. Plus, I am not too keen on the gym location closer to home than halfway between home and work.  I dither which I want to visit and probably end up getting an early dinner instead.

I use a similar strategy for everything else.

  • Bills I need to pay sit in a spot so I walk past them when I enter, leave, or go to do something.
  • Things I need to take to work are placed in front of the door, so I cannot open it without moving them.
  • Keys and wallet and work laptop stay in specific places.
  • Coats go next to the door.
  • The next load of laundry I need to do gets stacked in the room. I have hamper bags for each load so I toss them into right place at the time.

All this organization is because I know left to my own habits there would be chaos. My personality leads to entropy, so I have to work at creating systems to establish order in my life. The better I allow the systems to work, the fewer the stumbles and gotchas. That said, the order often falls apart into disarray, so the systems have to be simple enough to restore.

 


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