I thought I had everything organized and in order. It just goes to show how useless my thinking is these days.
There are many piles in my office and on my desk, and I know what is in each pile. Everything is arranged to my specifications. My rule is: if I can’t find something, I don’t need it. Trust me; There are many things that I don’t need.
By the end of the week, I was finishing up my office area and closing it down for the week. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, knowing that my work for the week was done. Nothing is more satisfying than when a plan works out.
It was at this time that the Gracious Parsonage Mistress walked into my office area and said quite strictly, “What is all this rubbish?”
At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I looked around my office area and couldn’t see trash. So I asked him: “What crap do you mean?” It was a very sane and insightful question, at least from my point of view.
I have been married long enough to know that there is a different way of thinking and looking at things on both sides of the marriage aisle. After all these years of being married, I just can’t understand his side.
“I mean all this crap in your office,” she replied.
The only trash I could see in my office area was the trash can, which was full at the time. So I picked up the trash can, took it out, emptied it, and returned the empty trash can.
“Done,” I said with some degree of satisfaction, “I got rid of all the junk.”
You would have thought that being married as long as I have been, I wouldn’t have come to that conclusion.
My organizational method is not the same as hers. For example, on the other side of the house, she has what she calls her “Craft Room”. I went into it once, and it was so organized that I had to get out as fast as possible. It gave me a headache. It looked like a well organized store of artisan products. Everything had its place, and each place had its thing.
My idea of organization is that I know where everything is and if I can’t find it, then you already know the rest.
“Look at all the junk in your office. How can you work with all this junk around you?”
Still, I don’t understand what your definition of garbage in my room is. But the fact is, I work best when I’m surrounded by what she calls “junk.”
Then he said something that made my liver freeze. “I have some time, so let me help you organize your office.”
I know she meant well. But I also know that if she organizes my office to her specifications, I’ll never find what I want when I want it.
He then quickly walked over to one of my “stacks”. I almost panicked.
“No, no,” I said as softly as I could even though I was in panic mode. “Everything is fine; I’ll take care of it, you don’t have to worry.”
Anytime my wife has a project on her mind, she can’t stop until it’s completed to her satisfaction. She is a talented and very specific organizer. I know that if she organizes my office, it would be supreme.
If she organized my office, it would take me months to get it back to where it works according to my level of function.
When I finish a project, I go to one of the stacks and go through it and find something I had forgotten about, which becomes my next project. If I was organized, I would never find the next project to do.
I thought my life had come to an end, at least my working life. Then something happened that saved me from this situation.
My wife’s cell phone range, and it was our daughter. She wanted to know something about a craft project she was working on and she wanted to know if her mother could help her.
I saw her eyes light up as she left my office and went back to her craft room to help our daughter. I think that’s why God gives us daughters!
Getting out of this predicament was a great thing, but he had to think about what he would do the next time it happened. He needed a plan.
One person’s trash is another’s workspace. Just because you don’t understand how my office is organized doesn’t mean it’s not organized, and it doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing in my office.
My work space, or garbage as my wife says, is my environment to think and work.
As my wife was back in her craft room, talking to our daughter, a verse of scripture occurred to me. “Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established” (Proverbs 16:3).
When I’m in my space, no matter how someone else might do it, I’m in an atmosphere to think about what I need to do. Most of the time, my thoughts are rooted in God and how he has wonderfully blessed my life.
