(Dis)Organization (Wo)Man

Are you organised?  Are all your pre-digital photos neatly arranged in albums and labelled? Does every piece of paper that enters your house get read, dealt with, filed or recycled immediately? Or is your kitchen table, like mine, piled with newspaper supplements you really want to read--some day--and grocery store ads that should have been tossed days ago when the new one came out?

The last question doesn't apply if you have kids at home. Even I clear off the table before the grandkids arrive for a visit. That's why I have several cardboard boxes around the house full of cut-out articles and URLs of intriguing websites, and--well, to tell the truth, I never get around to sorting through them when the kids leave, so I'm not sure what's in there. Which is why I have several cardboard boxes...

If only my desk weren't in the same condition. The top layer is notes, maps, reference books, etc. for the book I'm working on, Anthem for Doomed Youth. The second layer is notes for the last book, A Colourful Death (coming out in June), though I did put the books and maps away. The third layer is notes for Sheer Folly. The fourth layer, I think, must be notes for Black Ship. Somewhere at that level is the plan I drew of Constable Circle, the street in Hampstead to which Daisy and Alec moved in that book. I needed it a couple of hours ago but--already 4 days overdue with the present book--I don't have time to hunt thoroughly.

If only I'd filed it! Since I started the second (Cornish mystery) series, I've been too rushed even to create a file folder for each book, as I did for the first 50. It's no good telling me it saves time in the end. I know that.

You'll doubtless be glad to hear I do pay bills and taxes and balance bank statements on time. I also have at least some of my old photos organised, though most of them are in a drawer in their original envelopes. Here's one from the distant past, and I even know who all the people in it are:

My grandmother, my great-grandfather, Great-Uncle-Ernest-who-went-to-Australia, my great-grandmother, and Great-Aunt Eve.

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