Real life won't let you `get organized'

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

An article that ran in this paper last Sunday confirmed what I have long suspected: that it is impossible to keep up with life. That in the end the dust motes, empty soda cans and old newspapers win and all the sweeping, filing, sorting, labeling and chronicling we do in the name of order are a total waste of time.

The headline stated just the opposite, of course: "Getting Organized Isn't Impossible." But after reading the stuff underneath, I'm convinced that the people who write these all-you-have-to-do-is-follow-this-10-part-plan-and-you-too-will-be-o rganized-and-happy-for-the-rest-of-your-life KNOW they have a good thing going because it's for sure they will never write themselves out of a job.

All the suggestions they make sound great on paper: "Write down your goals and priorities and constantly review them" "Keep supplies and equipment where you most often need them." "Stay with the task you start and finish that before you go on to another project." "One night each week go to bed by 9." But are these things doable?

I write down my goals, then lose the paper. I keep my hair gel where I most often need it, but my kids steal it, then keep it where THEY most often need it. If I ironed until I finished, I'd be ironing until June. If I stayed in the cellar until it was clean, I'd be there until a year from June.

As for going to bed one night a week by 9 - obviously the authors of these psychological treatises have never been exposed to teen-agers who only begin to come to life at 9.

They mustn't have telephones, either, which ring the most after 9, or fathers who call after 9 and say, "I haven't heard from you in a week. What are you too busy to make time for your own father?" They certainly don't have dogs or babies, because it's always after 9, usually long after, that they make the most noise.

Most of the suggestions, I will admit, are interesting.

Some are even sensible: "Lay out your clothes, keys, briefcase, purse and important papers the night before." But in real life who can do this? Your clothes are in the dryer and who wants to wait up for the dryer to buzz?

Your keys are with your son/daughter/husband who is in your car along with your briefcase and important papers, which you hope he or she doesn't sweep onto the floor, then step on.

As for your purse. Where is your purse? It was on the kitchen table just a minute ago. Did someone take it? Has anyone seen it? Where did it go?

This disorganization is real life. The flu is real life, kids up all night vomiting. Washing sheets and blankets at 3 a.m. Calling work. Canceling appointments and making one with a doctor you don't know because yours is on vacation. Waiting an hour to see her. Waiting at the pharmacy. Stopping for popsicles and a Disney tape. Watching Peter Pan for the zillionth time because "When you sit next to me, Mommy, I feel better."

Getting-organized books cannot work for women, because they are designed for men. Men don't have purses and friends they absolutely have to talk to on the phone for an hour, and little people who beg to play Chutes and Ladders with them.

Instead they have wives to do all these things that aren't on anybody's schedule.

Wives play with the kids. Wives drive them everywhere. Wives pick out birthday cards and write thank-you notes and bake cakes for school bazaars and visit friends and plan dinners and parties and all holidays (without women there wouldn't be any holidays). If women had wives to do all these things, we would be organized, too.

But we don't and so we fall behind. And in an effort to catch up, we read articles about managing time and freeing ourselves from clutter and we take notes and make mental promises and then the phone rings and someone says, "Can you? Will you?" and we do.

And we fall just a little bit further behind.