Orginazation Systems

I find it hard to describe how organized I am. My room looks very messy, but I know where pretty much everything is. (Well, the important things, anyway.)

It got me thinking about how I organize, and organization in general. I remember 7th grade vividly, where I had one gigantic binder for school, with one divider per class, and a pocket in the front that got literally stuffed with hundreds of papers.

My thesis is this: A good organization system tends to stay organized with the least amount of effort as possible.

Yes, my room looks cluttered. But my shoes are always in the same nook, and my wallet, cell phone, and car keys are always in the place that I've designated for them. (No, I'm not posting where I keep my wallet on the internet.)

Sure, lugging a binder for every class around was tough on my back, but it let me subdivide my subjects into homework, classwork, etc. Avoiding the one huge pocket, stuffed with months of old papers, made it all worth it.

When I started carrying a folder in my bookbag designated only for paper, I stopped having to search though every binder for a loose sheet, and was able to know when to refill.

The large folder hierarchy of My Documents makes finding documents again a snap. (Yes, I have stuff like \Schoolwork\10thGrade\Physics\StringTheory\FinalReport.doc.) It takes only a fraction of a second to save the document further down the hierarchy, but saves tons of time finding my files.

Sometimes, the solution to disorganization is not to spend more time organizing, but to improve your organizational system.

(Edit: Slightly changed example filename to make it fit on the screen. Stupid Blogger's fragmented CSS made my line run off the page.)