Organization

At heart, I am an organized person.

I love colour-coding, I love labels, I love clutter-free spaces, with designated baskets for remote controls and magazines.

But you'd never know that if you were to take a look around my apartment right now.

I have no idea what happened. I used to be a pretty organized person. Even through university, while I would have to gingerly tiptoe through the laundry-landmine that was my bedroom floor... my binders were matched to a folder system for each class, which was colour-coded to go with my white board assignment calender. In high school, my locker was a public health hazard, but my schoolwork was impeccably neat. There has ALWAYS been SOME element of my life that has been flawlessly in order.

Until now. Now I'm just so scattered, it's not funny. It's come to the point where I honestly think the only way out of this hole is to have one of the guys from Clean Sweep come in and save me.

But seeing as that's just about as unlikely as Stacy and Clinton knocking on my door with a free makeover (can you tell I'm taking full advantage of my new satellite package?)... I've become obsessed with productivity and blogs/websites. And it seems I'm not alone. It looks like people are DESPERATE for some kind of foolproof system. Be it organizing their electronic life or otherwise.

Take Gmail, for example. I am obsessed with gmail. I have been since the early days when the only way to get an account was to get an exclusive invite. And at that time, because they were just starting up, an invite was totally coveted. So as the months/years have continued, they have introduced more and more little gadgets to help organize your inbox. First it was labels (as opposed to folders), then they colour-coded the labels. And just last week they introduced the "tasks" feature.

Now this is a keeper. I just 'upgraded' to Vista recently, and one feature that I LOVED over the old XP was the little sidebar gadgets on the desktop. I suddenly found myself writing little notes to myself on the 'stickies' on my desktop. And I installed a similar program on my work computer (shhh, don't tell). But there was a problem. How could I write really effective to-do lists if each was mutually exclusive? I obviously needed something more mobile*.

So this whole 'tasks' thing (basically a little collapsible/expandable embedded window in my email) is the ultimate solution. It's not an independent application like Springpad. It uses the devices I already use on a disgustingly-regular basis.

Okay so I got a bit off track there, but my point is that it seems like everyone is struggling with keeping their lives organized. And you can see this by the integration of little gadgets in email, desktop apps etc.

SO, I'm going to post a couple links to websites/blogs that are (perhaps way too) into all this organization hoo-ha - because, you know, the New Year is just around the corner, and with it many seemingly unobtainable resolutions.

Scott Young's blog
DIGTG
The Zenhabits blog

And, if you guys know of any more (I KNOW I read someone's blog who said they were chronically obsessed with this apartment-systems site) let me know! Tis the season, after all!

*Yes, I know, a little notebook would have fit the 'mobile' bill but I'm terrible about leaving things behind when I leave the house. It just doesn't work for me.