I spent at least an hour today, in 2 half hour sessions doing papers. I used the one pile, then throw away, maybe and keep. But I had to create more piles for important things that were urgent. Never seems to be just one way to do it. I enlisted help of my wife, which drives me crazy because she will not hypr focus and get it done with me, instead getting it half done with me and then moving on to something else. At the half done stage, I think I go crazy because I need to go from point A to point B or I go nuts. I feel like nothing is done if I stop half way, and I also forget where I left off.... so in certain ways I actually relate in some things better with people who have ADD that with others. lol...paper...you know....how much...I hate paper...I am a paper hater!

Jonathan

Jon -- Relate to the all or none....If I start a pile...have to see my desktop where that pile was before I am happy...or doesn't count...no matter how tortorous to get it done....especially with pile of bills....I MUST go through them ALL at once....

Request: Please REPLAY your paper hater post here SOON.....I would like to see again...:)

Joan

Wow, is this an ADD thing? I am just like healthwiz when dealing with paper. I have piles of it everywhere. The mail falls into this category and I have piles of that everywhere too. It will take me hours to do the mail because I can't stop till it's done. If I do stop then the rest doesn't get done till next time I build up the ability to tackle it again (usually in 2 or 3 weeks). Also, I just noticed recently that I hold my breath when dealing with paper and/or mail so then I end up with an aching neck and/or headache when done.

Paper Hater

Ok! I HATE PAPERS! I ADMIT IT! IM A PAPER HATER!

Now what do I do? I hate these things. This scrap of paper, that scrap of paper....names, ph numbers, appts, scribbled everywhere. Contracts, bids, agreements, visa charges, checks, all over the place. Tasks, to dos, lists, priorities, urgent, must do, immediate, next week, next month, in another life!!!!! Call her, call him, call them, call another day!!!! Not home! Don't ring! Left a message! Wrong number! Assignments, Due dates, Taxes, records, receipts, coupons, bills!!!!! Why Why Why????? Let me go hunt a *******' elephant! To hell with the papers! I HATE PAPERS!!!!

Does anyone feel the same way? I was not born to push papers, but they get in my way all day.

Jon

Jon -- Thanks Jon...I was wanting you to replay this...it's SOO funny and at the same time tells it like it IS....listen if you ever write a book after you get your doctorate (you did say in a post earlier that your getting your doctorate, um in psychology, right??), include this....in perhaps an "ADD and humor" chapter.......

Joan:)

Very VERY funny, Jon. Are you perhaps documenting my life?????? lol

uh oh...I've been discovered....noooooooooo oooo ooo oooo

Jon

LMBO..

I'm burried in paper. You can't even see the top of my desk for all the paper. I know where things are most of the time, but when someone sits at the computer and then moves something I'm lost all over again. :)

The mail takes up the table by my bed. I try to organize it at least once a month. And most goes under the bed in a shoe box...thankfully I have a king size bed..lol. As for other things in my life..well you guessed it. Our bedroom is a catch all. I keep telling myself I'm going to get to that this week...but that week never seems to come. I always seem to have other things to do that take priority over it. I really need to get a PDA, this way I can cut back on all my notes and stuff, then maybe I will be able to find my desk again other than just the keyboard to my puter. :)

OKAY ~
LETS STOP THE (enter expliative here) MADNESS!!

I'm not ocd, let's get that clear,
but it doesn't take the whole world to look at a piece of paper and say ~ Keep, throw, MAYBE!

if I can't decide in the first 30 seconds,
it's a maybe,

you've all got it right b/c something a keep is an URGENT,
but this is not the point. . . . .
Don't hate paper,
it's Paper for @#$*##'s sake

it's not the enemy.
recycle my friends.. . . .
you have to rise above the paper,
b/c it's two dimensional.
are you?

lol----- 2 dimensional--maybe the dimensional transceiver is thermally interrupted upon the incidence of thought patterns that provoke recognition of 2 dimensional objects...

but otherwise....good point.....not the enemy. I like that!

Rise above the paper.. I like that too!

Recycle....

The Tao of Loving Paper should be the title....lets continue down this lane.

Be kind when judgint when to tear paper; Tear or shred paper only if necessary and even then, only once

Yes! I was just doing this too.....but was forced to stop before I was finished and now the papers are sitting on my floor in a big mess two days later...I just don't want to do it now.

-just do it - like Nike says - just do it! Once you start you will feel better and feel less stress about the impending implosion awaiting in those important piles. If you feel lke stopping and overwhelm quickly, like I do, then try doing it in rounds of 15 minutes on and 5 minutes off. Wear a timer. Another option is to get the whole family or a friend involved, but explain to them you still have to do it 15 minutes at a time or you get owerwhelmed. Once I get overwhelmed with paper pushing it seems like a cataclysmic event would be necessary to make me push any more. So I think the trick is to avoid becoming overwhelmed, by taking frequent mandatory breaks. But I'm not sure, because I have not taken my own medicine. I rely on others to get involved and help me with papers...and I still get overwhelmed, because once I start I don't stop until I'm totally mentally fried....which sometimes takes a couple hours, and other times takes 30 minutes. Today I'm going to try the 15/5 method because me and my wife have a lot of papers to deal with today.

Jon

I will try, but usually once I stop it's really hard to start again...almost as if looking at that pile the second time around make it bigger!

I'll give it a go, though:)

I've revised my plan. My problem ith the 15/5/15 plan is that I get frustrated stacking so much on the keep pile. Pretty soon the urgent keeps become trivial because there are so many of them. So I revised to the following. I suggested to my wife we work 15 minutes on making three piles: KEEP< THROW< MAYBE, and then take a 5 min break, and then work 15 minutes on the KEEP pile, to get some keep tasks done and get the keeps filed properly. This way, I would not feel like the keep pile ws getting larger and larger and more trivial by the minute. And I would be able to shift gears every 15 minutes. We didn't know if it would work, but it sounded good enough to try.

Success. In one 35 minutes we created a huge pile of throws, a descent pile of keeps, and a large pile of maybes. The nice thing about maybe's is that I know they are not urgent, so thats a pile I dont have to worry about heart stopping catastrophic calamities. Whats left? Just the keep pile. With me handing things to Angela and identifying what needs to be done with each one, she made files for me, and all my keep pile got organized. The important keep files made from there are on my desk ready to be acted on tomorrow. So this was beneficial!

What didn't get done? The other 90% of the paper piles. But seriously, if we could get 10% done in a 35 minutes session, and it was relatively painless, we could whip the paper work problem down to a reasonable size in 10 days, if we do just 35 minutes a night together. That seems like a goal I can attain.

This is the first time I have had a realistic possibility of beating the papers back off my desk and off the dining room table and off the living room floor in a long time!! My wife really liked the system too and agreed that it was working. So even though we didn't get as much done as we would like to, we did get something done, and we did create a system for tomorrow. That is progress for us.

Maybe my system will work for others, so give it a try and tell me if it works. It's 15 minutes on the 3 pile method of KEEP< THROW< MAYBE. Then take 5 minutes break. Then spend 15 minutes working on the KEEP pile to file it or do whatever each one needs. If you have energy and time remaining, take a 5 minute break, and come back for another 15 minutes doing the 3 pile sorting method >KEEP>MAYBE>THROW, followed by a 5 minute break, and then 15 minutes focusing on what needs to be done with the KEEP pile items...and so on, until you don't have energy for anymore.

I'm very curious how others receive this method and whether it works well for you.

Also, my house cleaning method, which is kind of similar to this, is still working, each weekend on Saturday and Sunday, and it is turning our house around completely. Its amazing, the kids accept the fact that we are doing this every weekend, and they actually like it, because we all see the house transforming into a nice place to be.

For me, its a joyous thing to be able to clean the house. Now it seems I have a good chance to get the serious paper clutter issue under control. Four rooms of my house have been devestated by piles of papers, so its certainly time to get it managed.

Jon

The sorting method works. We did it two nights now. I sort through papers puting htem in 3 piles....that part is easy...but I can only do it for so long..... 15 minutes seems right for me. Then after a short break, I start to sort through the keep pile, telling Angela what needs to be done on some of them, and going and doing what needs to be done on others. This way, while sorting takes place, some action takes place too. I find this much more rewarding than jsut sorting, because they feels so frustrating to sort and sort and sort but take no action, and then have a huge keep pile that all needs action of some kind at the end. That is too overwhelming for me. So this way, where the keep pile gets created for 15 minutes, and then gets acted upon for 15 minutes, and back to sorting again, that seems to work better.

Jon

EEEEW! Sorting? My head hurts......

Charliegirl

Every piece of paper I touch goes into the maybe pile. I can throw away the junk mail now. Yes I CAN. Well, maybe I have a little trouble once in a while. I don't know what to do with anything either. What's an IMPORTANT paper? And what do you do with one if you find it? Where do the bills go? And what if you don't want to pay one this month........ do you save it or wait for the next month's bill. I get so confused and overwhelmed by it all and then I just hide from it. My bank did start sending me my bank statement email, the were already keeping my cancelled checks and I am so grateful to them for not forcing me to deal with all that paper every month. Linda

BTW When I first moved to Idaho 3 years ago, I sent my life insurance company my change of address, but something got screwed up and they didn't send me any more statements. Do you think I could find the policy or their phone number or even remember their name? Nooooooooo Partly because I had gotten so good at throwing some paperwork away. Maybe the wrong paperwork I guess. Well, just last week they found me again. :) I'm a few years behind in my premiums but at least I have life insurance. Linda

Phew Linda...

Glad they let you continue through with the policy again!

yesterday i ripped up every single shred of paper in my 50+ pile of notes, scribbled paragraphs, incomplete sentences in one big mess. it was what remains of my 7-page paper that is year overdue.

i didn't realize how ANGRY i was until i started ripping - i was angry at the endless hours i spent agonizing over every word, rewording the reworded
again and again for days and days...

anyway, i have yet to meet someone or know someone that understands how i feel. i thought maybe you would...

goodluck with your endeavors.



moonshine