paper pre-sorting

If you don't have OCD, you won't understand this. If you do have it, you'll know what I'm talking about before I even get it all typed out.

I put together 5 banker's boxes and labeled them: school, home files, Christian, scrapbooking, cards & my writing. These are the main categories of all the papers I have. I have boxes and boxes of papers. Some boxes need to be sorted, some need to be filed. I think they have all been purged of trash ... I think. Back to the boxes I labeled -- I set them out and went through a box of papers that needed to be filed. These papers had been purged of trash but all the categories were mixed up in this box. As I picked up a paper, I would place it in one of the 5 banker's boxes.

My plan seemed to go smoothly until I came upon some papers that I didn't know exactly where to place. Uh oh. Sub-categories. "Subcategories" are a sign to me that I'm thinking too much (too obsessively). For instance, if I continued thinking about all the sub-categories, I'd end up with tabbed dividers and manilla file folders inside the bankers boxes. Now was not the time to break the boxes into sub-categories. If I did that now, my processing of this box of papers would come to a screaching halt.

I started making a "misc other" pile. I told myself not to worry about what I was going to do with these papers.

I did have a quick thought (fear actually) that I could end up with 10 or 15 banker's boxes labeled (because of the sub-categories) and that would be overwhelming. I tend to make things into something much bigger than it needs to be. I can exhaust and frustrate my own self like no one else can.

I was excited about this sorting plan. I tried to tell my husband about it. I should have known better. He didn't "get it" and he wasn't enthusiastic about it. I'm fortuante that he allows me to have/use the boxes in the first place. Best to share my organizational brain storms here, with you.

Have to keep going, keep clearning out the dining room.