Obsessive Thinking

I decided to do some organizing with my scrapbooking materials. That would be FUN and enjoyable : )

I sorted through papers, documents and souvenirs that I intend to use on pages I make. I separated them and filed them away.

Two days later, I thought I would enjoy doing some more organizing. It didn't go as well. I hit a wall (frustrating myself).

I was working on making some sort of file in order to easily find words and phrases for pages about "FAMILY" or "FRIENDS," etc ... I started with legal sized hanging files. For some reason I wasn't liking how that was coming together. If only I had a smaller 4 x 6 or 5 x 8 file box. I thought I'd prefer the smaller size. I was happy to discover that I happened to have (not only one but two) of this type of box !!

I added A-Z divider tabs and started to file ziploc bags that contain "word" and "phrase" stickers. That's when I hit the wall. I was obsessing over how to file and how to KNOW what words and phrases I had. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I would need to keep an inventory of the "words" and the "phrases."

I continued to think about how I'd record the inventory; decided to use a small spiral notebook and list them alphabetically. I found a notebook the size I wanted. The number of pages were not listed anywhere on this notebook. I started to count them. Too many to count. I guesstimated that there were 80 - 100 pages. OK, I determined to use three pages per letter.

Next thing I thought about was that I wanted to be able to easily access a letter in this notebook. In order to do that, I would need tabs. With the straight edge of an index card and a pencil, I marked off the right edge of a sheet of paper. I held three pages together and cut out a notch (tab) for the "A" section. I did the same for "B", "C", and "D".

The tab would not be durable. I used a label and folded it over the paper tab (then wrote the letter on the label). This made the tab slightly thicker. I will eventually add some clear packing or scotch tape on top of the tab.

Next step was to come up with my codes. I needed codes for the location of the "word" or "phrase" and also codes that would tell me if this was a word (single word), a theme, a picture or
a definition.

After I came up with some codes, I thought about what order I would use to make an entry on a page.

At this point I had overwhelmed myself. This organizing was no longer enjoyable. I was quite stressed. I cleaned up and put everything away I had out.

Summarizing: I thought about coming up with a way to easily and efficiently be able to get my hands on stickers and sayings to use if I was working on a scrapbook page with the theme of "Friends" or "Family". My original thought did not pan out well. When I got down to using a smaller file box and my obsessive thinking brought me to the conclusion that I HAD TO INVENTORY each and every word sticker .... that's when I hit the wall and felt like crying or maybe even screaming a little because I also knew it would be a frustrating and tedious job to do.