“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”
—A.A. Milne

I am not a tidy person. My Gorgeous wife sometimes refers to me as a “messy”

Really what she means is that I don’t continuously reorganize stuff like she does. I have a tendency to put things down and then not pick them up again until I need to use them.

Of course that time may never come.

Hence the clutter that I tend to accumulate along with labels like “messy”.

The good news was I could pretty much find anything I set down because it was located right where I left it. I could reach down through the various strata on my desk right into the exact level where the piece of paper I needed and retrieve it in a moment. It was arguably faster than if I had to go find a perfectly labeled file in a drawer.

At least it used to be.

Now I live with an organizer. Rarely do I find things where I left them. They get put away, moved, organized, or even {gasp} thrown out!

Before you get all on my wife’s case, things are much tidier than when I lived on my own. I’m no longer embarrassed by clutter when folks come to visit. It is definitely a good trade.

A Dichotomy

There is, however a weird, almost schizophrenic, part of me that tends to be highly organized at work.

I’ve had to be over the years because of the things I’ve done and the positions I’ve held.

Very strange that I’ve never seemed to bring that quality home with me.

Even as a kid I was a “messy”. When I was a teenager my mom gave me a little poster with that A.A. Milne quote on it. Of course I didn’t realize that’s who said it even though I was quite familiar with his stories.

Yet I did OK in school.

It’s like there’s two Chrises (What is the correct plural form of a name like Chris? Chris’s? Chrises? Chrisssses?)

Where was I. Oh, yes. Two of me. Anyway the whole thing seems strange, that I can be very organized in one environment and very much less than organized in another.

But the cool thing is that I am constantly making exciting discoveries at home!

And that’s just the Way I C it.

–Chris Cree, SuccessCREEations.