A lot of people seem to think that being messy means being disorganized.  What they don’t realize is that there is a method to the madness, if you will.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of how I like to arrange things.  The sad thing is, I’m the only one who knows how to navigate this personal system.  But nevertheless, just because I don’t put things away in compartments, files, folders, and boxes doesn’t mean I don’t have a system.  In fact, I have a very complicated system that involves multiple possible places for things.

You see, that’s the thing about trying to categorize things.  There will always be those things that fit into multiple categories or don’t quite fit into any and just need their own place.  So for people who must segment all things in their lives, that must be a nightmare.  But for someone like me, everything is transitory.  Some things may fall under certain groups when I am feeling a particular way and under other groups when I am feeling another way.  It may not make sense to anyone else at first glance, but I think if someone ever took the time to start to learn the logic I use (however faulty that may be), they can start to understand my system.  It may even seem sensible.

I can be quite picky about how things are organized at times, especially when it comes to stationery and other such office supplies.  I even used to have a sticker drawer that was filled to the brim with sheets of stickers that I have acquired over the years and never bore to use.  I can be quite quirky in how I choose to organize my life, whether it’s sticker drawers or changing methods.  Perhaps the downside of having fluid systems to put things away is the difficulty of tracking down which system I was on when I put certain things away.

There is also something about clutter and mess that makes people think dirty as well.  Maybe there’s a little more surface area on which dust can collect, but really, unless there are flies or ants crawling around, it’s probably not any more noticeable than an area with neat stacks and piles.  Why do we automatically have this negative association with mess?  It’s not necessarily bad!  Well hey, I don’t care; it works for me.  I like my mess.