Organization (or lack thereof)

I apologize for not posting for the past few weeks, but between drama, injuries, and lack of time, I haven't really had time to write. But I'm back and you can all rest assured that I am not in a mental institution somewhere, driven mad from trying to write.

But this huge gap between articles gave me a very good segway into this article's topic... Organization. I italicized it, underlined it, and put it in bold because it is ON.

Obviously, I don't have it. Or do I?

See, when I say the word 'organization', I don't necessarily mean neat, clean, alphabetical, or whatever. I mean that you have a system that you use to keep YOURSELF organized. It could be in binders in a drawer by your desk, or it could be in notebooks spread out across the room, or it could even be a lot of post it notes covering a lot of wall in that office which, let's face it, definitely DOES NOT go with the rest of the decor anyways.

Point is, we all have a system we feel comfortable using. But that doesn't mean it's the best system to use. I'm the perfect example of it. My organization extends to numerous notebooks that are scattered in and around my desk (which I rarely sit at) or across the room by my bed. I ALWAYS forget which notebook I recently wrote in with my story ideas or mental notes and it's becoming a problem.

Looks like I need an..... (pause for dramatic effect) ORGANIZATION MAKEOVER! Of course, I can't be the only one out in this great big world of ours looking for a better way to keep track of all the insane ideas and stories we put down. So here are a few:

1) Notecards: May seem kinda strange when I just told you everything in my room is scattered and notecards will, more than likely, find a way to play hide-n-seek, but there's a way to organize that as well. I'm not sure of the proper name because I haven't used one in quite a while but I'll call them "Notecard Boxes" and the general purpose of these boxes is to hold all your notecards. These can be found on the same aisle, probably, as the notecards.

I, sometimes, like to get color coded notecards to go a little deeper into how efficient I work. I'd use green as a poem ideal or, if it's a story, the plot. Red as characters. Purple as setting.And so on. May seem like a lot of work keeping track of all these colors but I keep them all together when I have them all filled out.

2) Binders. They're a great way to hold all the stories or poems you've written over the years and allow you to go back and take a look at where you've been and how far you've come. I use them. The only problem is that I use too many! I have multiple binders! So to help MYSELF organize, I'll try to use just two. One for holding my stories. One for holding my poems. And maybe a third to use for working on stories or poems in the making.

3) Simple is better. I got this after I realized that I consider using 3 binders to be "organized". Simple can be any number of things. What do you need to cut down on? The amount of 'organizers' you use? Whatever it is that you think you have too much of, work on it. If there isn't a way to make it simple, try to make it more efficient for you.

4) Back up your back ups. Nothing says unorganized like a caffeine induced writing frenzie ONLY to have your only copy get lost, or accidentally deleted because your computer decided it would be a GREAT time to restart itself (I swear, computers plan these things on purpose). But outsmart those machines by saving it constantly and onto something like an external hard drive or USB drive, along with on your computer. Now you have two copies. Now god forbid you lose your USB drive on the same day your computer restarted itself, then you might just have bad luck. I, personally, use a USB drive and I've set up folders on that drive so that when I save what I'm working on, I know right where to go. One folder is titled 'Poems'. The other 'Novels' and it has its own sub-folders of plot, story, character, and so on. I would do the same on my computer but I think my computer has joined a Computer Activist group and refuses to let me be the Administrative User.

5) Do what works for you. They say it takes 5 weeks to learn a new habit, so in that time it takes some forcing and constantly forgetting to do something that will help you. But it gets easier. Hopefully. I'm still in that '5 week learning' stage and I have to say, I've screwed it up multiple times. But I remember and go back and try again. That's the point. But don't do something that destroys your entire system. You're simply adding or improving a part of your system, not blowing it up with dynamite and putting a nice little apartment complex on it.

If you thought this was unhelpful, just remember that there will be more articles with actual "helpful" information on it in the future.