Organizing the Unorganizable

Hi, I’m Matt.  And I am not organized.

Yes, I know, I should have told you to sit down before dropping that bomb on you.  You may say to me, “But Matt, you write amazing posts every day and tell us about the cool shit you do all the time.”

And I would reply to you, “Yes, that may be true, but that doesn’t mean that I have any idea what I’m doing.”  You see, I used to have some semblance of routine.  For five days a week, I’d get up at the same time, go to work at the same time, and come home at about the same time.  I’d do the same thing every evening before going to bed.  That’s not a bad thing.  Routines can be very useful.  The problem with my personal routine was that it wasn’t very useful at all.

I worked at a job that -in my opinion- didn’t contribute anything useful to society.  It was just a big megacorp that used up natural resources to make an unnecessary product for the purpose of enormous profit.  I didn’t have any job satisfaction.  So I came home and either watched Netflix or played video games.  Again, not very productive or satisfying.  Then I went to bed and started it all over again.

Only on the weekends would I have the chance to do something useful.  Create something.  Visit friends.  Visit my wife (we were living in different cities at that point because of our jobs).  Most of the time was spent visiting my wife and friends.  I didn’t use much of it at all to create.

Now that I have my new shitty job, I don’t work for as many hours, so I have more time to create things.  And I’m also aware that I need to create to give meaning to my own life.  But the flipside is, my work schedule is not fixed.  It’s different week to week and day to day.  There is no routine.  Every day I have to double-check when I have to be at work and when I’m allowed to do things like this blog, or host Freddy’s Fan Fiction, or be on Talking Shit with Dave and Earl (like I was last night!) or run, or brew a beer, or work on my story.

I don’t know why, but this random, non-routine schedule is forcing me to think about when I can fit in my projects.  And that forces me to think about creating.  Somehow, that prompts me to actually create!  I guess that I work much better when I have to bob and weave.  If I set the cruise control, I just take a nap.  If I have to pay attention, my brain tells me where I can fit other things in.  I’m still unorganized, but it’s probably for the best.

Does it work the same for you?  Or does a strict routine work better for you?