Scruffy
[from A Perfect Mess, by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman]
“What is it in your office environment that helps you figure out how to pick up where you left off or to being a new task, when you’re interrupted, leave the office, or finish a task? “Neats,” he’s [researcher David Kirsch] found, depend on a small number of “explicit coordinating structures” such as lists, day planners, and in-boxes to quickly and surely determine what to do next. Scruffies, on the other hand, are “data driven” — that is they don’t explicitly plan out and specify what they do but instead rely on the office environment to give them clues and prompts, in the form of documents lying on the desk, files piled up on top of the filing cabinet, comments scribbled on envelopes, Post-it notes (which , surprisingly, many Neats disdain) stuck here and there, books left open on the floor, and so forth.”
What do you know? I’m a Scruffy. I am an out of sight, out of mind type of person. I wonder if I can learn to be a Neat. I don’t do well with lists because if I write down every single little thing that I need to do, it would take several pages, which would make me feel overwhelmed, which leads to avoidance. I know day planners don’t work for me because although I own one, most of the pages are blank. I tried the in-box method a few years ago and found that I ended up just piling stuff on there and then forgetting about it. I think I have a better chance of just accepting the fact that I’m a Scruffy and develop more organized physical cues to remind myself on task.
[from A Perfect Mess, by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman]
“What is it in your office environment that helps you figure out how to pick up where you left off or to being a new task, when you’re interrupted, leave the office, or finish a task? “Neats,” he’s [researcher David Kirsch] found, depend on a small number of “explicit coordinating structures” such as lists, day planners, and in-boxes to quickly and surely determine what to do next. Scruffies, on the other hand, are “data driven” — that is they don’t explicitly plan out and specify what they do but instead rely on the office environment to give them clues and prompts, in the form of documents lying on the desk, files piled up on top of the filing cabinet, comments scribbled on envelopes, Post-it notes (which , surprisingly, many Neats disdain) stuck here and there, books left open on the floor, and so forth.”
What do you know? I’m a Scruffy. I am an out of sight, out of mind type of person. I wonder if I can learn to be a Neat. I don’t do well with lists because if I write down every single little thing that I need to do, it would take several pages, which would make me feel overwhelmed, which leads to avoidance. I know day planners don’t work for me because although I own one, most of the pages are blank. I tried the in-box method a few years ago and found that I ended up just piling stuff on there and then forgetting about it. I think I have a better chance of just accepting the fact that I’m a Scruffy and develop more organized physical cues to remind myself on task.
