Procrastination or more?

[LucielaMinerva]

I realised that I actually am extremely good at organization- more so than most people anyway, and my err... skills are usually required by my family members out on trips as they need help to arrange, coordinate and organize the car/their travel bags.

I love patterns and classification- I would dare say I'm a sucker for organization and have always been fascinated with patterns since young. I liked lining things up and arranging them, even colour-coding my books and files when I was in school.

Sometimes I feel this intense urge to just clean things up. I will keep obsessing over how untidy my table or room is and then fantasize about dragging everything out and rearranging things. Thankfully my (rather underutilized) toilet is always kept spick and span and I get pretty annoyed when my carefully arranged toiletries are in a disarray, or when my toothpaste tube is squeezed from the middle instead of from the back.


BUT the irony of it all is that I'm known to be one of the messiest person ever.

My workspace is usually cluttered with things that keep piling up, and I have reason to believe that it might be due to my laziness to keep things tidy and not a lack or organization.

I was mulling over the whole notion of organization and tidiness for quite some time, and have come to the realization that:

1) Despite what is outside or what people see of my spaces, I actually AM affected by disorder and chaos.

2) I enjoy bringing order to chaos through classification (one reason why I was intrigued by the dewey decimal system when I was younger)

3) I tend to leave my spaces disorganized and in a disarray because I felt too overwhelmed by the mess, so much so that I give up before I start as I think that I would not be able to organize such a mess. (too many categories, too little compartmentalization = brain implodes)

4) This cycle leads to MORE mess due to procrastination and I get stressed and frustrated about my spaces.

When I finally DO manage to clean my spaces, it ends up looking extremely pleasing and tidy.







... then I go and mess it all up again because I would be too lazy to keep things in order as I'm usually in a rush to do things.


Sigh. Is anyone of you here like me too? Or are you just just plainly unaffected by mess?

PS: I saw some of the pics of your workspaces in the thread, and I felt a certain need to press the 'x' on my tab. I'm sorry, but how do you guys actually LIVE in such a place? (no offence!)

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Mess is my order. An order that only I understand and that is what appeals to me. I understand your appeal of organising techniqes though. I'm very good at packing so that not only do things fit, it is symetrical and balanced. I just can't live with it as a constant in my life.

 

[Ermine]

I like order, but I appreciate it in a different way than most. I'm an advocate of organized chaos. Sometimes I can find something better in a pile than I can a file cabinet. It really depends. However, I'm also pretty skilled at organizing things for other people if I try.

For me, even a messy room isn't chaos if I know where everything is and it doesn't inhibit my freedom of movement. It's not chaos until it's in the realm of the unknown.

 

[Razare]

I'm a total slob too, and it works in a cycle just like you described. But you know what's really funny about it? If someone comes into my room and places down one item that does not belong to me, or moves something, I immediately notice when I come back to my room.

 

[Zaltana]

Sometimes I do wish I didn't live alone or that some of my friends would come over to my place more so I'd have reason to clean it. None of my clothes ever make it to my closet and I just toss them in the dryer to de-wrinkle them. The dishwasher gets unloaded when the sink becomes full or I run out of clean silverware. Work for me is much worse. I have organized piles of stuff that needs filing. I keep getting scolded by my supervisor to put it in the filing cabinet so others can find it.

I do manage to clean up though when I expect someone to be in my apartment besides myself or my SO (he's probably more chaotic than I am and he's an INFP). When I do I'm just amazed at how much space I do have. Give me a week and the chaotic order reestablishes itself.

 

[walfin]

Sometimes I do wish I didn't live alone or that some of my friends would come over to my place more so I'd have reason to clean it. None of my clothes ever make it to my closet and I just toss them in the dryer to de-wrinkle them. The dishwasher gets unloaded when the sink becomes full or I run out of clean silverware. Work for me is much worse. I have organized piles of stuff that needs filing. I keep getting scolded by my supervisor to put it in the filing cabinet so others can find it.

I do manage to clean up though when I expect someone to be in my apartment besides myself or my SO (he's probably more chaotic than I am and he's an INFP). When I do I'm just amazed at how much space I do have. Give me a week and the chaotic order reestablishes itself.

Well, there's no point cleaning up when you don't need to do it.

If your apartment was always neat you wouldn't get the Wow! feeling you get now when you suddenly realise you have lots of space after cleaning up.

 

[Jaico]

As long as I can cross over from one side of the room to the other without tripping, I think that's an organized enough room . Oddly enough, I do have some semblance of organization in my room; all my clothes are in my closet or on the floor in front of my closet, all my books/study work is in a pile near my closet, and everything else...is everywhere else. Unfortunately, my little piles are never really organized (my clothes are usually unfolded and all over the place, and don't get me started on my schoolwork...) Whenever I clean my table, I just take that to mean "put all my random stuff on top of my table into my drawer," so...yeah. I still keep my room clean (as in not dirty), just not organized .

Strangely enough, I hate clutter on a computer...I'll go through great pains to organize my folders neatly, and I really dislike having unused shortcuts/random files on my desktop/any folder. I also don't enjoy having multiple windows open (i.e. switching between lots of word documents) - it gives me a headache.

 

[Tyria]

I usually try to keep things in order, but it usually doesn't work out. I try to be proactive about things but I do occasionally procrastinate. Summer is the best time for procrasti

 

[Adamastor]

My workspace is usually cluttered with things that keep piling up, and I have reason to believe that it might be due to my laziness to keep things tidy and not a lack or organization.

That describes me perfectly. In fact your situation really, really similar to mine o.o

LoL. I kinda of organize like a compiler handles a stack in the memory. Things that are useful I throw put near my bad, things that I am recently working on I put on the floor, which is quite useful because if I had forgotten about this little project I would probably trip on it soon or later, quite the opportunity to start again...

After a few weeks or months I will look at all my stacks of things and see that it is not "efficient" - meaning it BOTHERS me - anymore, so I'll start over, put in a closet, drawer or anything, probably on the same place (because, if I need it later, which happens more often than not, it easier to find, meaning it is the first place I'd look for and try to remember where exactly I put it and when...).

I too, at random feel that my closet, my drawer is untidy and pull everything out of it and organize my clothes from scratch again and like you I am not capable of keeping it tidy and the cycles happens again... This also happens with my computer, I love the feeling of starting everything over (reinstalling the O.S), after burning some DVDs of course, because it is so much easier than organizing all of it ^^.

I find interesting that all these heaps of things are secluded in specific places in my room. The remaning I try to keep in order (i.e when step-mother asks why the room no tidy).

BUT the irony of it all is that I'm known to be one of the messiest person ever.

This sucks and when I tell the people that I am not they laugh ¬¬

 

[Salwan]

I'm new here, just discovered the whole INTP thing...

That describes me perfectly. In fact your situation really, really similar to mine o.o

LoL. I kinda of organize like a compiler handles a stack in the memory. Things that are useful I throw put near my bad, things that I am recently working on I put on the floor, which is quite useful because if I had forgotten about this little project I would probably trip on it soon or later, quite the opportunity to start again...

Ok, this is getting scarier and scarier... during the last year I was obsessed with the idea that my brain works like a stack, I always discover the most important tasks I need to do in the back of my head at the end of the day, and I tried for a few months to make it work more like a priority stack instead, assigning a priority to each task and ignoring the tasks with lower priority.. the damn thing never works!

For the second part, I had visitors today (I live alone) and I had to quick-tidy the room, I now have a pile of project notebooks that I can actually sit on, and they all came from the floor!!

 

[Denizen]

I've been lurking here since I decided to do some research on my type a couple weeks ago. I've taken the test several times over the years, but took it again recently, and got curious.

I have found this forum incredibly interesting. I've never seen so many people in one place that seem to speak out of my own mind and past.

This post rant true more than almost any other. I have a (self diagnosed) mild case of OCD. That combined with my type made me a very organized person at one time (annoyingly so to most friends and room mates). Until I married an INFP that is a total slob. Seriously, she's awful, and was never taught how to clean. I've tried to teach her, but it seems hopeless most of the time. So, my house is usually a wreck.

I do, however, take sollace in my shop. It is always spic and span clean at the end of each day, no matter how many wood shavings have landed on the floor. I need that badly. When I am in an unorganized space (home) I get uncomfortable. If it is bad enough, then I feel like my skin is crawling.

She's very lucky I love her very, very much. Then again, I'm a pain in the ass as well

 

[Jaico]

Welcome to the forums, Denizen! (since it's your first post...?) Hope you'll enjoy your stay here!

Back on topic, does anyone else have a problem with throwing stuff out? It's quite hard to bring myself to throw away/recycle papers or trinkets, even if I know that in all probability, they'll never be used again.

 

[Denizen]

Welcome to the forums, Denizen! (since it's your first post...?) Hope you'll enjoy your stay here!

Back on topic, does anyone else have a problem with throwing stuff out? It's quite hard to bring myself to throw away/recycle papers or trinkets, even if I know that in all probability, they'll never be used again.

Thanks!

To answer your question, yes! I'm a terrible pack rat. I have things upon stuff upon crap.

 

[Cogwulf]

My bedroom is terrible at the moment, 2 months ago I moved back to my parents house from Wales where I'd been working for a year, and I'm only here until I start at university next month. When I moved back I just stacked everything up in my room and was happy to leave it like that, but the stacks have slowly spread themselves out and now the only floor space is just by my door, and the space around my chair.

I keep trying to organise it and throw away stuff I don't need but every time I go to do it I get distracted

When I'm working, my desk slowly gets piled up with junk, then every now and then I sort through it all, and everything I no longer need gets crammed into a draw.

 

[anemian]

Procrastination uses the same mental responses that rebellion does.

 

[Claverhouse]

Procrastination uses the same mental responses that rebellion does.

This would ensure that most revolutionaries are far too inept to implement their plans. Oh wait...

In which case they should follow Lenin and Hitler's wise examples and rely on luck.


I worship Fortuna --- but am very fond of Athena.


We need a baby owl smilie !


Claverhouse

 

[Firehazard159]

I feel the same way as the OP too.

My workspace that other people need to rely on to find things in is extremely well organized, to the point where I impressed my coworkers and the corporate office, I guess. It all just made a ton of sense, and my store was the only one out of 25+ that was actually efficiently organized. (I work in a grocery store, frozen / dairy department, I keep the coolers in back organized and the stuff out on the floor filled. woohoo.)

Anyway, I have a constant need to organize things at least mentally, even if I never take the initiative to do it. My room is always a mess, but it's always in the back of my head to clean it, but I usually just end up feeling like I have better things to do, or, more important things. Like typing this ^. haha.

But even my mess is somewhat of an organized chaos, and my family always had me pack the car for trips, because my visual / spacial acuity is quite well developed, and my organization of everything is always intelligent rather than just tossed in. Stuff that needs immediate access is accessible and such.

 

[The Fury]

I don't mind my apartment being a mess but I have a problem when it becomes dirty. When my sink is full of dishes and my toilet is encrusted with scum, it's then that I actually go about cleaning my place.