Week 3 Entry - Chapter 4 and 5

Allen must not like sharing, because we should not share our workspace or labelers.  However, that is a very valid point as things that we have to deal with are not those of others.  Maybe we want to conserve space, money, or aim for convenience for certain situations.  Therefore, we tend to lump things together and share items.  Even though married couples share many things, they should have separate workstations as well.  He notes that this relieves the small stresses in the relationship of trying to manage items.  This allows us to keep track of our own items without extra distraction.  I don't work at an office, but I have shadowed my cousin at her workplace and helped with filing.  While sitting at her desk I noticed a labeler, and they were everywhere.  I never thought of using a labeler, but they must be an essential tool in offices.  My friend who works at an office also raves about the labelers!  It makes sense that this seemingly simple tool provides a lot of organizational power to quickly mark what needs to be processed.  Allen is particular about not computer-generated labels, because batches will cause resistance.  Allen emphasizes the "one alpha system", but the filing would only contain all the physical papers and not the items that may be in digital form elsewhere (98).  He also notes that we should have a "micro-office-in-transit" for those gaps of time to take care of some things from our list (90).  However, how does one combine paper and electronic aspects of our lists into one system, or do we have to choose one for our primary system?  I like electronic organization, because I can see more in less space. 

The process in chapter 5 of gathering everything and determining if the item is out of date or has meaning reminded me of every time I had to move from apartment to apartment.  I had to choose whether to keep or throw away papers, business cards, manuals, booklets, mail and etc.  It is difficult for me to throw away things, because I am one of those people that "think there still could be something important in there" (105).  So what I learned from my first move is to not accumulate, because I will just have more and more stuff for the next move.  However, I have still kept a majority of things from the first move that I have not yet fully dealt with.  Also, I don't have a definite workspace at home in comparison to my apartment, since I am not at home as often.  This creates two different locations where my things are, and I would need to organize both spaces.  Much of chapter 5 is about organizing the physical items as well as the mental.  If the workspace is uncluttered and organized, then it is more appealing to sit down, actually continue doing work there, and organize mental thoughts.  I have a lot of clutter on my desk, because it is very easy for me to plop down items such as keys, water bottle, earphones, books, but also items that stay and don't move off my desk.  This probably causes unnecessary stimuli for my mind.