It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys
For reasons I won't go into, I am reading (OK, skimming) this book, which is quite odd because it is a self-help book about getting organized and I am a highly organized person who never reads self-help books. In fact, I don't think I've ever read a single one. No, that's not quite true, if you count Kim Chernin, though I'm not sure you can, because that book is more cultural analysis than help. Even in the early 90s, when all my friends were reading The Bonds of Love, I didn't (though as I look at the description of that one, it doesn't really register as self-help either, which probably tells you something about me and my friends; indeed, if you have a certain sensibility, or remember a certain historical moment, this paragraph should tell you a lot about me and my friends).
At any rate, I am clearly proving myself a self-help-book neophyte, and, you know, it's not like I don't need help, because, really, I do, and I'm sure there are self-help books that would speak to me, but in general when I commit to a book, I want narrative, so I have tended to meet my self-help needs with magazine articles, which require less of a commitment (and I'm not even going to riff on literary commitment issues and the viability of self-help, because I really did mean this to be the kind of blog that got to the point).
Anyway, this book, which is clearly self-help (I mean, it offers a "seven-step path"), but which I clearly don't need (like I said, I am constitutionally incapable of NOT being organized), is quite fascinating. Of course, what interest me most are the narratives of unorganized people, which are kind of like travel writing, for they are bringing me into a universe of which I know not at all (15 years of unopened mail?!). But also, the method of getting organized propounded here seems eminently sensible: the author argues that you need to understand why you are unorganized, you need to think about what you want in your life that disorganization is keeping you from, you need to have a reason to get organized, you need to take small steps (I know, that's not seven, and I'm not even sure those are her steps, because, like I said, I'm skimming, and I'm more interested in the narrative, but that's kind of the gist).
My point being: if you are NOT organized, you might want to take a look at this book.
At any rate, I am clearly proving myself a self-help-book neophyte, and, you know, it's not like I don't need help, because, really, I do, and I'm sure there are self-help books that would speak to me, but in general when I commit to a book, I want narrative, so I have tended to meet my self-help needs with magazine articles, which require less of a commitment (and I'm not even going to riff on literary commitment issues and the viability of self-help, because I really did mean this to be the kind of blog that got to the point).
Anyway, this book, which is clearly self-help (I mean, it offers a "seven-step path"), but which I clearly don't need (like I said, I am constitutionally incapable of NOT being organized), is quite fascinating. Of course, what interest me most are the narratives of unorganized people, which are kind of like travel writing, for they are bringing me into a universe of which I know not at all (15 years of unopened mail?!). But also, the method of getting organized propounded here seems eminently sensible: the author argues that you need to understand why you are unorganized, you need to think about what you want in your life that disorganization is keeping you from, you need to have a reason to get organized, you need to take small steps (I know, that's not seven, and I'm not even sure those are her steps, because, like I said, I'm skimming, and I'm more interested in the narrative, but that's kind of the gist).
My point being: if you are NOT organized, you might want to take a look at this book.
posted by Becca at
3:12 PM
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