(no subject)
At this point I believe that all of my obsessions (as in OCD) can fall into three categories. I think of these as efficiency, categories, and my hair. My hair is a much smaller category than the other two, it's just my only obsession that doesn't seem to fit into the two categories.
Efficiency is the big one. I think of myself as having an internal efficiency expert. My world is very ruled by efficiency, though it lessens all the time as I become more aware of it.
Someone in LJ one asked, What do you think about the most? The answer was very obvious for me: efficiency. I am pretty much constantly thinking things like, Is it more efficient to go by the kitchen first or the bedroom? What is the best, most efficient method of completing this task? What is my usual procedure for this task? Are there any new factors to consider that might mean revising my method of doing this? What is the most efficient order to do these tasks in? I should make sure to take this thing to JoeBob when I go back in the room. Will it be better to talk about this subject first, or the other one?
I will admit, sometimes I fake "inefficiency" when other people are around, because I become self-conscious of how much thought I have put into something.
To me, efficiency is the fastest and simplest way of doing something. Rationally, I understand that the efficient way is not neccessarily the "best" way, but boy oh boy is that hard for me to remember sometimes. I have a lot of trouble understanding how other people could not be striving for efficiency at every moment, like I am. Frankly, sometimes it makes me angry.
I look for the most efficient way to do everything, literally everything. Obviously (is it obvious?) organization is crucial here. Non-organization can be downright disturbing to me.
Example: My team at work includes the receptionist, and one of her jobs is to open and process all the mail. If she's not there, I or my other co-worker open it. One day that this happened, she had started opening the mail and then for whatever reason, I took over halfway through. She gave me 4 different stacks of mail, that seemed to have no order to them whatsoever. Each pile had some mail opened, some sealed, some taken out of the envelope, some stamped, some not, and every type of mail was all mixed together, invoices together with junk mail. I just wanted to shout at her, "What in god's name are you doing here? What the fuck is this madness? Are you insane?" It took a lot for me to stay calm. Another day that she did all the mail by herself at the reception desk, I walked by and the whole surface of the desk was literally just a sea of this mail madness. I had to get away very very fast. Oh my god it was upsetting. I'm getting upset now just thinking about it.
In addition to generally being organized, procedure is important. If a good procedure is in place, it will be most efficient to follow the procedure, because then no new decisions have to be made. Decision making can be very time-consuming.
So what this means is that for basically everything, there must be a procedure, a method, a process, a "way we do things." This is the one that gets in my way a lot. It has only been in the last couple years that I've started to understand that not everyone does this. (And again sometimes it freaks me out a little that they don't. How do you people live?! :) )
Example: Once nobodobodon and I got in an argument that stemmed from confusion over locking the door as we left the house. I was in his way as he tried to lock it, and that was when it finally came out that the whole time we'd lived together, he'd been fucking with what I thought was The Way to leave the house together. (My procedure: Whoever was going to be driving (which would of course be decided before we went out the door) would already have their keys out, so they would be the one to lock the door. The other person would go out the door first, and then be out of the way.) When he finally got me to express all this, which wasn't even conscious on my part, it was that innate, I started understanding that not everyone is doing that in their head constantly.
I suspect that similarly, I have a procedure for everything I do with any regularity, though I'm not aware of lots of them. If you really asked me to analyze a situation though, I bet I could come up with it.
It is of course also important to stay aware of new factors that might require a new procedure, in order to stay the most efficient.
Though I have had the internal efficiency expert my entire life, I have certainly never been a perfectly neat and organized person. I suppose thankfully, I am sometimes able to realize when something will be too stressful to be efficient about, and I will let it go somehow. This might mean ignoring the thing entirely, which is something that often happens with things like cleaning, especially as a child.
Example: My room as a kid, all the way through high school was often a complete mess. If my mom would tell me to clean my room, I would always start with organizing my tapes, which would take like an hour, and then I'd be tired and have very little accomplished. Getting the whole room to a state that I considered "clean" was so daunting, it seldom happened, and I forced myself to ignore the chaos. Or make methods in the chaos.
Another thing I do a lot with a stressful efficiency situation is what I think of as forced arbitrariness. There are numerous times when there's just not an obvious best order to do things in. At these times, I will have to find arbitray factors to determine the order, like what order I wrote the items down on my list in. Or with cleaning, I have so many times ended up arbitrarily starting at one end of the house and methodically going to the other, that now it's really difficult to not clean that way. It's difficult for me to do the dishes when the living room is dirty, for example.
There are a lot of factors here, to this efficiency thing, and I think it would take me a very long time to thoroughly express them all.
I am learning more and more that I don't have to be efficient all the time, though understanding it rationally and actually living it are very different things. My spacey pregnant brain has been helping me with this some. Like, I'm constantly forgetting my water glass places and having to get another one or having to go back for it. Oh it's so bothersome. My lack of focus and concentration means I'm constantly unintentionally doing inefficient things. And the world doesn't end. It's a good lesson.
I don't know why I was compelled to write this now. I will likely write about categories sometime soon as well. Categories is the fun one. For me.
Efficiency is the big one. I think of myself as having an internal efficiency expert. My world is very ruled by efficiency, though it lessens all the time as I become more aware of it.
Someone in LJ one asked, What do you think about the most? The answer was very obvious for me: efficiency. I am pretty much constantly thinking things like, Is it more efficient to go by the kitchen first or the bedroom? What is the best, most efficient method of completing this task? What is my usual procedure for this task? Are there any new factors to consider that might mean revising my method of doing this? What is the most efficient order to do these tasks in? I should make sure to take this thing to JoeBob when I go back in the room. Will it be better to talk about this subject first, or the other one?
I will admit, sometimes I fake "inefficiency" when other people are around, because I become self-conscious of how much thought I have put into something.
To me, efficiency is the fastest and simplest way of doing something. Rationally, I understand that the efficient way is not neccessarily the "best" way, but boy oh boy is that hard for me to remember sometimes. I have a lot of trouble understanding how other people could not be striving for efficiency at every moment, like I am. Frankly, sometimes it makes me angry.
I look for the most efficient way to do everything, literally everything. Obviously (is it obvious?) organization is crucial here. Non-organization can be downright disturbing to me.
Example: My team at work includes the receptionist, and one of her jobs is to open and process all the mail. If she's not there, I or my other co-worker open it. One day that this happened, she had started opening the mail and then for whatever reason, I took over halfway through. She gave me 4 different stacks of mail, that seemed to have no order to them whatsoever. Each pile had some mail opened, some sealed, some taken out of the envelope, some stamped, some not, and every type of mail was all mixed together, invoices together with junk mail. I just wanted to shout at her, "What in god's name are you doing here? What the fuck is this madness? Are you insane?" It took a lot for me to stay calm. Another day that she did all the mail by herself at the reception desk, I walked by and the whole surface of the desk was literally just a sea of this mail madness. I had to get away very very fast. Oh my god it was upsetting. I'm getting upset now just thinking about it.
In addition to generally being organized, procedure is important. If a good procedure is in place, it will be most efficient to follow the procedure, because then no new decisions have to be made. Decision making can be very time-consuming.
So what this means is that for basically everything, there must be a procedure, a method, a process, a "way we do things." This is the one that gets in my way a lot. It has only been in the last couple years that I've started to understand that not everyone does this. (And again sometimes it freaks me out a little that they don't. How do you people live?! :) )
Example: Once nobodobodon and I got in an argument that stemmed from confusion over locking the door as we left the house. I was in his way as he tried to lock it, and that was when it finally came out that the whole time we'd lived together, he'd been fucking with what I thought was The Way to leave the house together. (My procedure: Whoever was going to be driving (which would of course be decided before we went out the door) would already have their keys out, so they would be the one to lock the door. The other person would go out the door first, and then be out of the way.) When he finally got me to express all this, which wasn't even conscious on my part, it was that innate, I started understanding that not everyone is doing that in their head constantly.
I suspect that similarly, I have a procedure for everything I do with any regularity, though I'm not aware of lots of them. If you really asked me to analyze a situation though, I bet I could come up with it.
It is of course also important to stay aware of new factors that might require a new procedure, in order to stay the most efficient.
Though I have had the internal efficiency expert my entire life, I have certainly never been a perfectly neat and organized person. I suppose thankfully, I am sometimes able to realize when something will be too stressful to be efficient about, and I will let it go somehow. This might mean ignoring the thing entirely, which is something that often happens with things like cleaning, especially as a child.
Example: My room as a kid, all the way through high school was often a complete mess. If my mom would tell me to clean my room, I would always start with organizing my tapes, which would take like an hour, and then I'd be tired and have very little accomplished. Getting the whole room to a state that I considered "clean" was so daunting, it seldom happened, and I forced myself to ignore the chaos. Or make methods in the chaos.
Another thing I do a lot with a stressful efficiency situation is what I think of as forced arbitrariness. There are numerous times when there's just not an obvious best order to do things in. At these times, I will have to find arbitray factors to determine the order, like what order I wrote the items down on my list in. Or with cleaning, I have so many times ended up arbitrarily starting at one end of the house and methodically going to the other, that now it's really difficult to not clean that way. It's difficult for me to do the dishes when the living room is dirty, for example.
There are a lot of factors here, to this efficiency thing, and I think it would take me a very long time to thoroughly express them all.
I am learning more and more that I don't have to be efficient all the time, though understanding it rationally and actually living it are very different things. My spacey pregnant brain has been helping me with this some. Like, I'm constantly forgetting my water glass places and having to get another one or having to go back for it. Oh it's so bothersome. My lack of focus and concentration means I'm constantly unintentionally doing inefficient things. And the world doesn't end. It's a good lesson.
I don't know why I was compelled to write this now. I will likely write about categories sometime soon as well. Categories is the fun one. For me.