On Organizing

It's important to be organized, but it's equally important not to allow the process of organization to overtake the goal in sight. I know, I can see you nodding and hear you ask, "But how? How do you do that?" Well, don't ask me. I don't know. I just know it's important.

Anyway, Zorak and I put the kids to bed and headed down to proceed on the Great Basement Overhaul. My plan tonight was to put labels on *everything* -- every shelf, every coffee can, every box. If it's going to live down there, it must have a label. We must know why it's there or, so help me, the next time I do this, I'm just setting things on fire if they don't have labels.

We made progress. Zorak got the peg board hooks up and began hanging things from them. I suspect he's writing a secret code that'll only be visible from 20' away, but for now, I'm going to let that slide. (I want to see what it says.) We created a work space for the boys, complete with work bench, seating, and storage compartments. We got the bulk of the Scary Chemicals up, hopefully out of the reach of the Bad Idea Fairy, as well as small children and dogs.

In the process, we had to fight our inner pack rats, our inner raised-by-Depression-Era-wolves children, and our inner desire not to have to do this at all. There was a lot of internal struggling going on, but mostly, I think, we won. The sweetest victory of all, however, was not the three bags of trash, or the two large plastic tubs now empty, or the spare shelf we ended up with. No, those might sound good, but they're nothing compared to the victory we scored over the Categorizing Demons.

That's our Achilles Heel, right there. We over-analyze every. little. thing. We want a name, a place, a compartment, a label, a coffee can, for every individual item you could ever hope to find in our basement. But I only bought two rolls of masking tape. So, we had to be firm with ourselves. And so, we have labels, and we have simplicity. I thought I would share, in case anyone else has trouble deciding just where to draw the line in their categorizing, between "too vague" and "far too detailed". I think we've found a good balance.

Leatherworking; Bowmaking; Concrete tools; Scary, Dangerous Stuff (this would be the shelf with pesticides, herbicides, and other neurological agents, but "neurological agents" didn't seem like the best thing to have listed on a shelf, in a basement, with other... accoutrements... that might, you know, "concern" the nice folks at the FBI. Not that that's a concern. I'm just saying...); Happy Homeowner Stuff (small nails, furniture feet pads, stuff normal people keep in their basements); Sealants & Adhesives; Sanding materials; Power Tools; Power Tool Accessories; Construction Fasteners; Normal Fasteners; Plumbing; Electrical - Construction; Electrical - happy homeowner; Reloading Equipment; Weird Stuff You Only Look For Once A Year (very important category - you can easily fill a small bin with this one - be flexible, but don't overdo it, or it'll take you a year to find anything in that bin, and by then you won't need it).

Zorak got away from me, for a bit, with a few bins: All Things Blades; Tape (I don't mind a "tape" bin, but... there were three...); Metalworking (I take exception to this. I don't know metalworking, this is true. But I know for a fact there is an 18" piece of angle iron, cut from a metal bedframe that he took from the dumpster behind the storage facility... this is scraps, I know it's scraps, I just can't quite make a convincing case for tossing it when he quotes the price of angle iron at Lowe's. So, that box stays. For now.) I did, however, keep the masking tape on my wrist, and am going to push for a more efficient grouping of a few things down there before wielding the Sharpie Of Organization on them.

We're back on the same page again, though. No blood was shed. Nothing broken, or hidden (I think). Hey, that's what a good marriage does. It allows you to figure out how to keep it together, and enjoy the process, right? Yeah. It does. Onward and upward! And then, to bed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy