This bit of organizational craziness (or DISorganizational craziness, as the case may be…) has been my morning.

I know, I know.  I’m blowing my own image here a little bit.  I’m okay with that.  This particular mess is temporary, and necessary.  (The rest of the house..?  THAT, we’re not going into.  I’ll get there.)

I’m really not sure what’s gotten into me for the past two days.  (Okay, yes, I know what it is.  Read the last post.  It’s that.)  I’m one of those people who’s very, very into the IDEA of organization.  I try a lot of different things to make my life easier, and, generally speaking, they fail.  Bigtime.  For a couple reasons:

1.  I have a tendency to ignore my collection systems.  Not intentionally, but because my Mac can’t travel with me everywhere, so when I’m downstairs or (gasp) out of the house, I have index cards.  And while index cards were working for me for a while, the fact that I’m now effectively juggling enough projects and stuff for four or five whole *lives*, keeping the cards from getting scattered and/or out of order was becoming problematic.  I’d grab the wrong card stack, go out to a meeting, and be utterly screwed.  So I kinda stopped using those, too, for a while there.  Ideas were on scraps of paper, in various notebooks, and in at least one case, written on my *hand*.  Not overly effective, especially since I’m fond of soap.

2.  Once things were collected, they were a giant bitch to go through.  Pardon my french.  But seriously, here.  Oh. Em. Gee.

and

3.  I didn’t have an effective scheduling system.  I also didn’t have an effective to-do list type system that was complete, since my collection of all the General Stuff To Do rarely made it INTO the to-do-list systems, due to the extreme amounts of varied and sundry effluvia that made its way onto those index cards.  Lots of stuff to reference later, but no real way to FIND it when it came time to USE it.

In other words, I’ve been a giant slacker, just kind of floating on through life, doing whatever thing was most on-fire at the time.

Now, granted:  I’m pretty productive.  This system of non-system has worked just fine for me, for the most part.  Things have been falling through the cracks here and there, but I try to be a little gentle on myself about it.  Mostly because I really *am* trying to do too much in a day, and I know this.  But there’s me, and there’s Adminnie, and we’re just two people.  Period.  We occasionally have minions who come to help out, but for the most part, it’s just us.  (And, due to my System of Non-System-ing, when the minions *do* come, sometimes I don’t even know what to have them help with.  This is Not Good.)

Now, though, with all the crazy stuff going on in my life, all the new additions and this sudden streak of wanting to, oh, say, actually know where I’m going and being accountable for what I’m doing for the first time in forever (first time not working for just *me* in a long time now, I might add, so I’m a little out of my element), and knowing that my body isn’t going to take much more of this floundering-around-and-working-eighteen-hours-a-day thing  (I’m almost 40.  It’s time.)….I needed something.

Enter my best. purchase. evar.

The iPhone.

Did you hear that?  The faint sound of an angelic chorus singing as the clouds overhead break wide open and stream shafts of sunlight onto the Apple Headquarters?  That’s Steve Jobs getting his wings.  I shall knit him a wing-cozy.

Honestly, I bought the iPhone for one, singular reason.  I have a person I talk to for exceedingly long amounts of time every day (bestest. friend. ever.) and he’s got one.  Calling from iPhone to iPhone is free, and the long distance charges were starting to have to be brought in by pack mule.  I figured even at the relatively high monthly cost of it, I’d still be saving money by the truckload.  (Which I have.  Beside the point.)  I’m also a giant Mac-freak, but again, that’s beside the point.  I didn’t really think I *needed* a cell phone, since I rarely leave the house, and all that app nonsense was all greek to me.  Why would you use your *phone* to play the ocarina?  I didn’t get it.

And I reiterate: Oh. Em. Gee.

I totally get it now.

I’ve been underutilizing the technology available to me.  I admit this freely, obviously.  I use my iCal, but not very much (google calendar gets used more often, honestly, since before this, it was easier to access from anywhere), and I was using 30boxes.com for shared calendar-ing, but not very well.  I’ve tried just about every blessed to-do list program out there, but all of them kinda pissed me off, largely because I wasn’t using them right.  (see above about data collection.  duh.  I also freely admit that the error there is between the keyboard and the chair, and the error was doing all the typing, or lack thereof in this case.)

So I found iPhone apps.  Downloaded a few.  Played a whole lot of Bejeweled on the plane home from North Carolina.  Still didn’t click.

Then, from above, the light broke and understanding streamed down.   I found ToodleDo, and made a few list items.  Liked the way you had multiple options for scheduling.  Hmm.  Started scheduling everything through iCal again, because it synchs right up with my phone.  Discovered Evernote for taking pictures of diagrams and sketches and such, as well as typing in random text notes.  Found iTalk for taking text notes while driving.  Downloaded iOwn for keeping inventories of yarn and sniffies so I don’t double-buy anything (and for keeping track of my base oils, so I have that info with me wherever I go, which is INSANELY helpful for when I’m either placing orders, or coming up with ideas for scents on the fly and need to know what I have on-hand with which to create said scent.)  I even found a freakin’ knitting counter program that saves where I’m at in any pattern as I’m working through it.  Seriously helpful.

And I have it all with me all the time.  They all have a web component that backs it all up, not to mention Apple’s brilliant backup system built right in.  I’m not worried I’ll lose anything like I was with lists and cards.  And I can access my googledocs if I need to for longer text copy-pasting right into my Evernote.

I’m sure this is all about as exciting to y’all as watching paint dry.  But for me, it’s like this huge revelation, replete with ambrosia and honey mead and a few saints doing the tap-dance on the head of a very big clue-by-four.  Duh Moment x10.

Yesterday and today have been all about the re-visiting of all my data, then.  I have, literally, a couple *thousand* bits of to-dos, ideas, sketches and notes on various cards and notescraps all over the place.  It’s a huge huge HUGE job to go through all of these and put them into some kind of order.  Huge.  Eye-gougingly huge.  But the way it’s all coming together — reference stuff and ideas on Evernote, action lists on Toodledo, everything scheduled out in iCal so I don’t go completely batshitcrazyinsane with it all…?

Working. like. a. charm.

(And now, the more organized among us are all doing the Happy Duh Dance, and probably laughing and pointing.  Go right ahead.  I deserve it here.)

I don’t feel nearly as overwhelmed with the idea of strategic planning for the upcoming Life Changes and Work Stuff as I did before, because I know where everything is.  Granted, the downside is that I know where everything is, and I know exactly how insane I was to take on this much stuff.  But honestly, it’s not as bad as I feared it might be, and I know what, if anything, I can delegate or delete now.

It’s freakin’ awesome.  Seriously.

(And, parenthetically, because apparently I’m all about the parenthetical in this entry — I’m clearing out literal STACKS of clutter that have been here for a long time, waiting for my attention.  It’s all distilled down into this one little technological square the size of one index card, and OMG DO I LOVE THAT.  Also, since I know better what I need and what I don’t, I’m less likely to hold on to EVERYTHING “just in case”.  I can totally smell the Zen from here.)

I’m gonna need a smaller purse.  Wallet, iPhone, keys, lip balm.  That’s all I need now.  It’s kinda scary.  One good-sized pocket’ll do me now.

Now I’m wondering what else I can digitize and get out of here.  Knitting books with one pattern I like?  Photo the pattern and give it away to someone who likes all the patterns.  The giant stack of recipes (both scent recipes and food recipes)…could be gone.  More counter space = a good thing.  That kinda stuff.  I have the ability now to do all my small things more effectively, and might actually clean my house once in a while with all the free time.

I’m such a geek.

Only now, I’m an *organized* geek, with a purpose and a good to-do list.