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How do you organize, if at all?
June 17, 2012 - 8:55pm
Whether it's books, CDs or paid utility bills, everyone has either a system, or a total lack thereof. How do you organize stuff, if at all? By title? Artist/author? Genre? Are you afraid to open a closet for fear of what may avalanche, or are they neatly organized by colour, clothing type, each in its own section? Does your home look tidy only because you have all the disorder crammed into closets, decorative baskets and credenzas?
What kind of organizer are you?
I just throw my bills in a pile and once every ten years I file them away. Everything is paid through automatic deductions. I organise my music collection by genre: folk, soul, rock, and blues. I organise my shirts by whether they're black or white. Black goes on one side of the clothes closet - white on the other. I organise my books by genre: theology, fiction, maps, and cookbooks.
I had assumed this was going to be a thread about a totally different type of organizing, but this is fun too.
CDs: alphabetically
DVDs: first divided into tv and movies, with both section organized alphabetically
books: divided into non-fiction and fiction, with both sections organized alphabetically by author
LEGO: mostly by colour
Everything else could be described as organized chaos. Fortunately, I have a pretty decent memory, so it's rare that I can't locate something that I'm looking for. That said, if anyone's seen my CD of Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary, please pm me.
Phew.... from the title I thought this was going to be the thread where we finally had to fess up and justify our existence.
I used to be able to make do with one pile. Now that it includes active financial records it is still not bad - a bankers' box each for personal and archive files, and a tall filing cabinet.
Books, roughly by fiction and non. Records, alphabetical, with a separate section for classical.
Books:A hybrid organization sistem. Organized partly by genre, partly by use, partly by size, and partly by purchase date.
My books are on my book case. On the top shelf, fiction. Starting on the left, fiction books from college and university. First the Penguin Classics, alphabetically, then the plays, then other fiction books from college and university. Then the fiction books not from college and University, roughly by genre.
On the middle shelf, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. First, those non-fiction books aquired up to about 2005 that are short enough to fit on the middle shelf. Next, the fiction books from BC History and African American History. Then, textbooks from college and university that fit on the second shelf, organized by subject and course.
On the bottom shelf, Those non-fiction books that are too big to fit on the top or middle shelf, organized by subject. Those from college and university are stacked in a pile at the right end of the bottom shelf.
On top of the bookcase, the overflow section. A couple of overflow textbooks from college and university; plus a half dozen other non-fiction books acquired from 2007-present, all left/marxist/activist books on politics and history.
Print Music: My clarinet music books are stacked on the bottom shelf of my filing cabinet. My clarinet sheet music is in my hanging file (top drawer of my filing cabinet) under C for Clarinet. Some of my piano music books are in the piano bench, others are on a shelf in my bedroom closet.
CDs: The 70 some odd CDs bought between 1997 and 2006 are in a black Discgear Selector 100, alphabetically. The jewel cases for these are stacked alphabetically in my bedroom closet (cannot bring myself to part with these). The four cds by local independent groups I bought between June 2010 and January 2012 are stacked next to the Discgear unit (Not a fan of the discgear anymore. Don't have space to arrange all my cd cases any way other than stacked in my bedroom closet, so have kept the Discgear for all except the last 4 cds I purchased, which I listen to most often).
DVD's and VCR tapes: On the shelf under the tv. On the left, my 1 DVD (Pearl Jam--Live at the Garden). in the Middle, my three Star Wars Trilogy Video Cassettes, in chronological order (the edition with the Vader, Stormtrooper, and Yoda covers). On the right, my two VCR tapes containing the 10 episodes of the PBS History of Rock n' Roll that I recorded off tv when it aired in November 1995.
Paper filing system: I have an accordion file in the top right-hand drawer of my desk, and a hanging file system in the top shelf of my filing cabinet. Folded papers go in the accordion file, unfolded papers go in the hanging file. Some custom course package materials from BC History and African American History, both of which I've kept, are filed in the middle and bottom drawers on the left hand side of my desk respectively.
I have a large number of unfiled papers on a stacked filing tray system that sits on top of my filing cabinet. Some things get filed almost right away, other things stay there for ages without getting filed, and many of the unfiled papers get discarded without ever being filed.
Important documents from my childhood: Filed in a filing box by my mom over the course of my childhood. Organized by subject -- report cards; swimming, skating, and gymnastics lesson cards; elementary school reading club certificates; some of my childhood drawings and paintings, ect. This box sits on one of the shelves in my bedroom closet.
Photo albums: I have two photo albums of photos I took up to 1997, organized chronologically, and they sit on a shelf in my bedroom closet. My print photos from 1998-2007, when I got a digital camera, are still in the photo store paper envelopes, and are filed in my hanging file.
Clothes. Some clothes are in my chest of drawers. Top drawer contains my socks, underwear, bathing suit, and gym shorts. Second drawer contains my short and long-sleeve t-shirts. Third drawer contains my sweaters and pyjamas. Bottom drawer contains my jeans and shorts.
The rack in my bedroom closet contains the following, usually though not always in this order left to right: tie rack and ties, dark grey suit, colored dress shirts, white dress shirts (from when I worked a job that required we wear white dress shirts), black dress shirt, black silk shirt, black dress pants, Community band uniform golf shirt. My slippers go on the floor of the closet, and my robe goes on the hanger on the wall beind my bedroom door.
My running shoes and dress shoes go on the shelf of the bench by the front door. My jackets, gloves, scarves, touques, boots, and umbrellas go in the hall closet.
Most of my books are organized by genre throughout the house. Given that Ms. C. and I have thousands upon thousands of books there is some slippage in the organization.
CDs are a hybrid of alphabetical and genre with my jazz Cds always accessible.
Most records are organized alphabetically.
Ms. C files the bills and organizes the clothes. Since she is an archivist she is the more organized of the two of us.
I don't understand the OP.
There is a 12 step programme for that, Catchfire.
I just can't seem to find the time.
ETA. True story: I once tried to sign up for an anti-procrastination workshop only to be told that it was already full. I thought: you are systematically excluding the people who really need it!
I have taught anti-procrastination workshops. There is a helpful memonic for procrastination busting. Anyone interested can PM me.
What's wrong with procrastination? It works for me.
When I used to have an office overlooking the Queensway, I started out vvvery well organized. Every scrap of paper went into alphabetized file folders. And then a few years later by 9/11/01, they became stacks of paper carefully positioned on the floor with various types of weights on top so as to foil air currents of mass destruction.
Obvious joke alert: I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually
The only thing I can be said to organize is my books, which I organize roughly by era or genre: early-modern, 17th and 18th century, 19th century (sub-categories: Victorian and American), early-20th century, late-20th (crime fiction is a separate c-20 category), contemporary fiction, critical theory (loosely grouped by categories), philosophy, history. More often, however, they're just in stacks around my various desks, at home and at work.
My CDs are all in boxes since 2008 when I moved to the UK. I often wonder if I'll open them again in this, the age of MP3s.
I have a few LPs organized by genre.
"Important papers" are put in a filing box and into storage. It's not the best system, as you can imagine.
Son: in crib or on floor.
Whisky: in my belly.
Nah ... I figured we were in need of an apolitical thread about an issue that is more fluff than substance. Kind of like the dust buffalos that live under my couch.
My desk tends to look as if a tornado hit it, but it is, in actuality, a lot like an archeological dig. I will start something, have it laid out on the desk. Something else catches fire, so I will lay that out, overlapping the previous task. And so on. If I just peel back the layers, I can get back to what I was doing. This isn't so bad unless there's too many things happening at once, but as that has been the case lately, I have set up quite an interesting dig for myself. I should really find a better method.
Clothes are organized by type - shirts and blouses together, dresses together, slacks and skirts together. When they get put away, that is. There's a chair that usually has a number of items on it of various types. Shoes tend to migrate around the house. Seasonal clothes are packed in bins with the owner's name on them and stored in the laundry room downstairs.
My books are more or less chaos. They fit where they fit, size-wise, but sometimes where they land. I always have stacks of books next to any comfortable chair in the house. We had a storage thingy for CDs that I once alphabetized, but we realized that we only use a few and the rest have been packed away so we can look for them if we want them. Since we'll be moving in the next year, there will likely be a purge.
I have a filing system for bills and tax receipts in a drawer. I also keep track of expenses on an accounting program so I can generate budget reports and see where the money is going. So while my general housekeeping is haphazard, I'm much more organized about that aspect of life.
Books:
Given that I have to spread bookshelves across three rooms (living room, bedroom and study - there is not enough wall space to have them all in one room) the structure is not immediately apparent. Books are divided into three primary categories: Fiction, science fiction, and non-fiction.
Fiction (living room and bedroom): those originally published in English, subdivided by country of origin, then alphabetically by author, then chronologically by date of publication. Those translated into English, subdivided by original language (but not divided by country of origin), then alphabetically by author, then chronologically by date of publication.
Science fiction (bedroom and study): alphabetically by author, then chronologically by date of publication (this causes a few problems with science fiction not originally published in English, I tend to file them with other translated fiction).
Non-fiction (living room primarily, reference and oversized in study): grouped by topic with a strong emphasis on geographical relevance (although a couple of people have accused me of being a bit arbitrary about this), then alphabetically by author, the chronologically by date of publication.
Exceptions: Orwell (both fiction and non-fiction, he has his own shelf), Iain [M.] Banks (again, has his own shelf, although I separated out the fiction and the science fiction). Plays and poetry are alphabetical by author regardless of language of origin and are grouped together.
I have also separated out to imprints: books published by The Women's Press: two separate groups (fiction [living room] and science fiction [bedroom]) each alphabetically by author, then chronologically by date of publication -- and my books from the Heinemann African Writers series, alphabetically by author, chronologically by date of publication but not subdivided by original language or country of origin.
CDs (and vinyl, I still have vinyl):
Four groups: Popular, Jazz, Classical and World. Alphabetically by artist in each, then chronologically. Solo works by former members of various groups are still filed alphabetically (i.e., Paul Westerburg solo albums are not filed along with The Replacements). A few compilation discs don't comfortably fit into these catergories. They are bunched together as an afterthought along with movie soundtracks. CDs (fortunately) all fit into a carousel shelf unit in the living room, vinyl is stored in 5 milk crates that live in the bedroom closet.
I want to quibble!!! Dust bunnies grow up to be dust kangaroos.
And how do you organize them? I would suggest this would be an appropriate time to sort them strictly by size - something I consider a hideous crime when done with books.
I would, but I'm afraid they'll bite.
(That oughta get me out of some housework...)
See!!! What'd I tell you?!
:)
Further on the theme of there being no escape - a special treat, just for you Timebandit.
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com
Books:
I have very few fiction books, so those tend to be off on their own. I had developed an organizing system for my nonfiction books which managed to segue across all the various topics I have had. So, for example, my contemporary labour would segue into my labour history, which would segue into biographies of old communists, which would take me into my Marx section. My queer would seque into my feminist, and my international solidarity section would snake from Latin America, through Africa, take a brief stopover in Ireland before proceeding to the Middle East and over to China.
Of course, my book collection has grown since then, and I have not purchased a new bookcase in quite some time. So, my system has been wrecked for lack of space. In addition to the large amount of unfiled books that will never fit into this ingenious system, many of my books have been double parked so I can not even see the back layer on the bookshelf.
Not to mention the books I had loaned out which I had not gotten back. I've all but given up on the hopes that someday I will be reunited with my copies of "White Niggers of America" or "Hamas: A Beginner's Guide". And I'm pretty sure that that last sentence has put me on some CSIS watch list, on the off chance I'm not on one already.
But, you know what they say: "You can trust a comrade with your money or your life, but you can't trust a comrade with your books or your wife."
Bills and paperwork:
I stuff them all in a drawer. I hope I never have to go through that stuff again, but if I do, its only organization is reverse chronological order, based on the date on which it fell into the pile.
My desk and stuff:
A bloody mess. I usually have multiple piles on my desk, and two messenger bags full of stuff (one to take to university, one for other occaisions. Crap will mix together, I will get my D&D stuff mixed in with my Palestine stuff, and my class stuff mixed in with my union stuff (which is not always as different as it seems, as I am majoring in Labour Studies).
Once every few months when I get a brief reprieve from the ongoing hell which I subject myself to, I will go through it and make three piles: a "burn" pile for sensitive documents, a "recycle" pile for other crap that I want to get rid of, and a"filing" pile for stuff I want to jold on to. "Filing" is, of course, a misnomer. Once I separate the books out, I simply dump that whole pile somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Of course, after going through such effort to hold on to it, I never look at it again. But, such is life.
Don't even start with the unholy clutter that is my computer's desktop.
Hi babblers. Been away for quite some time and, for some quirky reason, decided to drop by. This looks like a light-hearted thread that I can add to. BTW, I'm in an education-related field out here on the left coast.
l.p.'s - in three boxes or so in a storage area. My plan, ha ha, is to go through them and record those I really want to keep on ....
cassettes - Yea? So what? I like 'em. I can record 'n stuff. Anyway, i've got a few of those mini-brief cases and a really weird cassette drawer thingy that sits on top of one of my speakers. (My space is really limited).
CD's - not enough to worry about.
books - the bulk of them are organized into boxes by genre. I have a list of the thematic contents of all the boxes and can, pretty well, find any book I want. The boxes are in a kind of basement storage area overlooking a cliff with some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen. For some strange reason the really big, fat spiders love the mathematics and philosophy section. Bastards. I've really got some catching up to do.
general point - move across Canada and it's amazing how much crap you can get rid of. Worked for me.
Anway, cheers. My studies kind of have most of my attention which is the main reason why I haven't been here for awhile. I don't have any problems with moderation or any other stuff. Hell, I'm probably one of the sob's that's been responsible for driving good people away. lol.
Great to see you around, ikosmos! There was a Marx thread that could have used your help awhile back, but it might be full now. Still, don't be a stranger!
A Marx thread? hmm. I'll have a look. ETA - the credit card?
"Verrry interesting."
[silent pause]
"But stupid!"
Heh. I suppose I should have clarified -- of course we have more than one Marx thread! I was talking about this one, but it is indeed closed.
That said, your analysis of the Marx Credit Card is just about as spot on as you can get.
I get them to sign union cards.
But 'kangaroos' doesn't start with the letter 'B'. Dust bunnies, badgers, buffalos ... beavers? Belugas?
Speaking of organizing: I just heard that my employee group has a certification vote next Thursday. we are the only non-unionized employee group on campus.