10 Aug Being Organized
Over the weekend, was doing my yearly ritual of cleaning up my wardrobe and reviewing the filing systems to identify the disposable one’s and to do necessary protection for the to-be-stored items. And for once, have decided to dispose-off the kirana-bills dating 2010 till December 2015 (little background – I have this habit of writing daily expenses in a notebook categorized per expenses head – like conveyance, communication, personal, miscellaneous etc, and summarize them by month-end and then creating a electronic copy – MS Excel – for a long term performance review!).
Printing Salary Slips, Bank Statements, Important personal emails as well as the Purchase Bills – being stored in separate box-files, for over two decades – seems to be well-organized practice for one (read myself), while someone else (read my lady-love) find it as absolute waste-of-time and stupidity. While, I follow the ritual myself without any problem, I also insist on her practicing it. And there comes the situation. Is it really required?. Is it so important?. What do you get out of it?. Are we not supposed to reduce paper print & save trees?. And finally the argument goes as, “when on need – you shall find them, anyway!”.
Another habit of mine, which seems odd to my lady-love. Whenever I keep an alarm for a specific time, am up 5-10 minutes before that and switch-off the alarm and carry-on with my duties. Similar for packing my bags – it is always packed, one day before my travel and emptied as-soon-as-i-arrive. And lastly, am too stressed on time-keep up. I respect my time and so others! And I expect others to reciprocate too. The mockery of Indian Standard Time (IST) is the most annoying thing for me (both professional & personal).
So, in a nutshell, all my preparedness and self-regulated actions, helps a great deal to me i.e. meeting the ongoing demands and deliver the best in my roles. But also, makes myself as predictable character and on any of the last-minute-preparation situations, naive.
On the other hand, those who are less organized, face-the-situation-as-it-comes and dash-it everything on the last hour – seems more competitive and efficient. The chance of failure on their approach is still remote and as long as one is smart, fast and energetic to meet the necessity, result is same for both. So, why boast for being well-organized, well-planned and well-prepared?
I do not know – which side, I shall cast my vote – when it is a recommendation for others. While I reaped sufficient benefits on being pro-active, have also got into trouble for being rude or angry-bird with my dear-ones, unnecessarily!.
As mentioned in one of my previous post – humans are expected to behave differently, for a given situation, at different times. And, as the priorities in life are dynamic and subject to environment, being organized or being a master-of-time is a combined quality, one should try to build-in-self. While former gives the advantage of being prepared for the rainy-day, latter gets the advantage of being innovative and shrewd in handling tough times.
So, be organized, but be prepared to be the smart-chap for those last leg pace.