MetaMagazine ProjectLog
Getting Organized
01/20/03
Getting Organized
Getting Organized
What to do about unwanted chaos
Chaos is paradoxical; you need a certain amount of chaos to be creative but not to the point that you feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff.
Getting organized is helpful for people in offices and at home. Unwanted chaos is non-productive; there are several systems, tools and principles for this. Getting organized is a general topic within problem solving which is said to be most effective to clarify feelings because it is primarily aimed at the physical environmental level. The clean desk feeling, nice labeled folders, knowing where your stuff is stored and where to put it (back) when done.
Usually the problem of increasing unwanted chaos is that new stuff doesn't have a place to store it.
A nice helpful diagram to process "stuff" from your in-basket to a destination from David Allen's Book "Getting things done":
Stuff - Workflow Diagram
The level of accepted chaos may vary from person to person. In my experience the tolerance level of chaos for men tends to be higher than it is for women. If the values of cleanliness and order differ within a household this may cause tension. For example a woman might feel uncomfortable with dirty laundry on the floor or a pile of used dishes in the kitchen long before a man finally does. Even within a emancipated society this might be one of the reasons women still do more of the household tasks than men... (It might be interesting to use the value-system as a variable for social science research)
Order is the reshuffling of Chaos using sets of Rules. These rules don't have to be logical, reasonable or even sane, but they do have to be internally consistent, and most of the things or people involved must fit or be made to fit the resulting Pattern. Sweeping unwanted facts under the Rug usually includes those who found them. In Reality, order exists in a sea of Chaos, for Order must be be recognized as such so that Meaning can be attached to it.
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Write down your goals
People have known for years that making a list of goals is the best way to achieve them. Why is that? First, getting your goals in writing can help you clarify what you really want to do. You might find you have some important and some frivolous goals. That is OK. You’ve got space for 43 Things on your list. Not every one of them has to change the world (but save room for the ones that might).
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What do you want to do with your life? It is not an easy question to answer – and you shouldn’t have to answer alone. Browse 43 Things to find out what others want to do. You might find some goals you share. Click the “I want to do this” button to add a goal to your list. Got an idea for a new goal? Just type it in the text box on the homepage or at the bottom of any page on the site. Bam. Now, it’s your thing.
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From: http://www.43things.com/about/view/learn_more
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Interactive Moodbased Webradio; Explore your musicstyle by mood, type and timeline.
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An Open Source CMS website to "try out" php/mysql based free and open source software systems. You can be the administrator, allowing you to decide which system best suits your needs.
NL: Een mooi overzicht voor webmasters waarbij je de Open Source CMS scripts ook gelijk kunt uitproberen staat op: http://www.opensourcecms.com]
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Many learning and study tools and high quality information and innovative references for educators, creative problem solvers, etc. and society as a whole.
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Songerize is a simplified interface for the SeeqPod.com music search engine. Think of it as SeeqPod's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
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VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.
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Nieuws over de dingen die wél goed gaan en informatie over onthaasten, zingeving en praktisch idealisme. Ook belichten we de actualiteit: kritisch maar oplossingsgericht. Zinfo biedt je elke werkdag verse inspiratie!
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