Creating the Mess

It's so easy.  Forget to clear the inbox for a day or two and suddenly the pile doesn't seem all that much bigger if I just add one more item... or two... or ten.  Go on vacation and stop the mail and open it before you go to sleep. There's not enough energy left to pay the bills and sort the requests for donations and the invitations to benefits and enter them into the calendar.  Into the inbox they go.

And then the box is full.  Tackling it will take time and effort.  Decisions will have to e made. Filing will have to be done, and that requires moving and bending and I know I should get up from the desk and just do it but the next piece of paper in the pile is interesting and leads me to search for an address and pen a quick note to a friend and then I've lost focus and the desk is getting messier and messier.

I traveled twice in three weeks; I never cleaned up after the first trip.

And so there are piles within the pile.  Health insurance must be considered; companies are sending me all kinds of information which must be read and BlueCross/BlueShield upped our premium by a sqazillion percent so there's some urgency to the situation. I should make a folder and put it out on the coffee table to peruse during football, but I'm reading the newest Lisa Scottiline stand-alone novel and I have no desire to work on life right now.  Back in the inbox it will go.

Itineraries for children's return to the parental fold are copied and taking me down memory lane rather than sending me to the calendar so that I don't forget to pick them up.  At one point, my Google Calendar was synchronized across all my devices.  Then, the electronics gods noticed the seamlessness of the operation and threw a monkey wrench into the system and now I have two distinct calendar locations with no connectivity betwixt them.  That's even worse than having no calendar at all.  Back in the inbox go the hard copies.

I don't know why I continue to let things pile up.  The piles themselves do not make me happy.  They are reminders of what I need to do and am not doing.  Within them lurk to-do's and should've-remembered's and chores of all manner and description.  I know, and I told the Cuters, that doing something about it is better than worrying about it.  They were brave words.  They have no relationship to the reality of my life.

G'ma's prescription list needs to be matched to the bills and to the pod castle's records and if I file it away I won't remember to bring it to the appointment.  I could leave it in the car, the way I've taken to keeping the Bed Bath and Beyond coupons (which never expire) in the pocket of the driver's side door. That seems a cavalier way to treat my mother's medical situation, so back in the inbox it goes.

I could go on, but you get the picture.  I am looking at "to be paid" and "put in GRIN bag" and "send to friend deployed in Korea" piles, and I am going to do something about some of them right now.