Summing Up My Life in One Place

I am so annoyed. I think I may have finally found the ideal Idea Notebook - this little baby not so well described and shown here, sold by Staples and, I found out, Target - but there was only one left in the store I went to. The second store I went to, hoping to find a color other than brown, had nothing at all.

You see I am a writer and a business owner and an employee and a wife and a mother (that last one still makes me look around thinking someone else is being referred to). I make to-do lists that can rival anything Oprah can cook up. I love things to be organized, but for some reason I do not do journals and idea notebooks very well. In order for those to be effective, you have to carry them.

Every. Where. You. Go.

It must become an extension of your arm. But see I already have 2 little extensions - by the names of Son and Daughter - and those extensions come with accessories most times. Plus my business is such that the samples I should keep on me - but don't always have - are not exactly easy to carry either unless I have a separate bag, i.e. another extension. (Any more extensions and I will blow the nearest electrical tower. But I digress.)

So you see, on a perfect day, I have my bag of business stuff - ready to deal with anyone who might inquire about what I do and how to work with me once they fall in love with the idea - and I have my purse (I have a love-hate relationship with those too) and in there is not only the ever-bulging wallet (not with money, but the receipts I reconcile, coupons, credit cards I owe, pen, various medical cards, 2 sets of frequent flyer cards for 3, etc.) but also my calendar and, supposedly, my Idea Notebook. Well, actually, the idea book doesn't exist yet. Three old versions are at home waiting for me to meld the still undone projects into one new, fun to use book.

So I went looking for the ideal book - again. The one that would let me track every aspect of the business stuff I have to do as well as jot the occasional note about a story idea for transfer later to yet another stupid idea book I have to keep for the writing side of my life. Can you sense the disdain? I told you I was annoyed.

I don't know what it is. It's like some unspoken requirement that in order to call yourself a writer or business owner, you MUST carry a book of thoughts. And since I never know which aspect of my personality will take over from day to day, I kind of need all this stuff all the time. That would require me to get a bag the size of a mini Cooper to keep things at the ready. And I do that - for a while. Then I resent it. And I rebel. I leave EVERYTHING home and carry the smallest bag I have, forcing me to only take my wallet, chapstick and a pen - so I can write my thoughts on the nearest wall if necessary. I carry the calendar because I am not organized if I don't have one, according to a time management expert I listened to months and months ago. My cell phone didn't seem to enough to please him. Although, in his defense, he didn't know he was having this argument in my head - and he still won.

Sigh. I hate the thought but I may have to be a techie just so I won't have to carry all this crap with me. The iPhone I've been seeing on TV does look really cool and I am already thinking about what my next
cell phone will be - something with staying power because phone hopping is not my speed. Yet, I am already rebelling against it and it doesn't even come out until June 29th. I can't stand being so accessible to people. Yes, my IMs are forwarded to my cell phone, but that's not the point! Maybe I'll just look at the thing and see what all it can do. Maybe I'll consider something like it next year when I'm ready to get a new cell phone. Maybe.

In the meanwhile, I can't even buy that book I saw at Staples with the sweet plastic tabs you can add in to section things off and the little business card holders you can put in it and the paper you can take out and refill and the leather cover and size no bigger than the calendar I am already burdened down with. After walking around, imagining I'd have to create the ideal Idea Book, I landed on that one and was told the book was recalled because of faulting binding and they won't be back until "sometime" this summer. My ideas, in the meanwhile, are floundering. They continue to be strewn about among my computer at work and the one at home and the notes in my calendar and the notes by my bed (which are always in danger of being confiscated by little people seeking their own paper to scribble on) and the unfiled notes on my desk. Darn it. Was that a note in my pocket that just got decimated in the wash?

I hate feeling scattered and I hate carrying things and I hate all the complicated technology. I'm a mess. But my self-proclaimed OCD demands attention. It's out of control.

So what works for you?