What Does My Desk Tell You About Me?

Einstein would hate my desk. Orderly, clean, well organized. Fully supplied with all supplies in their respective drawers. The computer cabinet, my desk, is dust free and the computer screen and keyboard clean. Everything to do with my daily desk needs has a home and is in its place.

On the pull down work surface lives a vinal blotter with a round coaster blue taped to the upper right corner for my coffee cup. My wireless computer keyboard is centered on the blotter, pushed back when I need to write, pulled forward when I need to type.

In the body of the cabinet; papers, bills, and other ephemera folded in half and organized by need and type are stored in a wire, five section, stepped holder. A rectangular wire basket organizer is filled, symmetrically, with four smaller organizers, two on each side and in the center, a pop up post-it holder. Three wire pen holders; small, medium, and large; organized by size contain pens, pencils, markers, artist tools, rulers, and scissors, line the two sides of the inside cabinet. A solar powered smiling flower also sits there, waving its leaves at me and bobbing its head in accord.

The top of the cabinet has over 200 Lego Minifies on display; each one lined up, each one placed carefully next to the other, each one standing perfectly erect, and organized by series number. On the left side and the right side, two stacks of four each plastic display boxes from the Container Store hold some of the collection, each box with three levels of minifigs. In the middle sits an antique oak display cabinet with seven glass shelves also carefully lined up with minifigs. Between the plastic towers and the antique cabinet sit two up lights, creating an ambience of light on the wall behind the minifigs as well as additional light in the room.

In the two shelved cubby hole to the right of the pull down and body of the cabinet, a lamp is clipped to one shelf. On the top shelf, three wire letter baskets stacked hold my iPad, extra disk drive, MacAir computer which I use to "take along," and an additional wireless keyboard and mouse. The second shelf is piled with four wire letter baskets for: "IN" "OUT" "HOLD" and "TO DO."

Everything is clean and in its place and organized ... some of the time. Over time the piles on top of the cabinet get higher, the dust and finger prints build up, the "don't know what to do with this tiny thing" count increases, IN items are in the OUT tray and TO DO items get HELD. The minifig boxes get knocked and several of the residents are contorted. Items find new homes rather than living in their usual place.

Then one day, when it has become too much to bare and when time allows; I begin "circling around" my desk. Taking something from here and putting it back there where it belongs. Paperwork is handled and/or tossed. "Don't know what to do with this item" items find a new home or get discarded. A Dustbuster cleans the gross dust and the yellow dusting rag fine tunes the surfaces. My eyeglass spray and a lens tissue clean the computer screen. A can of compressed air cleans the keyboard and trackpad.

And once again, Einstein would hate my desk. Orderly, clean, well organized. Fully supplied with all supplies in their places in their drawers. The computer cabinet, my desk, is dusted free and the computer screen and keyboard clean. Everything to do with my daily desk needs has a home and is in its place.

I am basically a chaotic, randomly goaled person who appears organized. I am not organized. Organization is what I have to do to keep myself running in my chaotic, random world.