How To Organize for the Hopeless Disorganized: Desk Edition

Raise your hand if you're feeling disorganized. Raise your other hand if you'd rather sit on the couch and cry about it than clean. Hey, me too! Now, turn those hands into fists and shout, "I WILL PREVAIL!"

Okay: attitude. Check.

Whether you live in a small or larger space, the starting point is the easiest/ first place to make yourself feel accomplished. Set a time for ten minutes and move fast: kitchen, living room, bedroom. If you have kids to help, even better. If your other half is around, grab him too. Share the fun!

We're not deep cleaning here, people. Keep it easy breezy.

My personal downfall is my desk area. I say desk with quotation marks, as my desk is also our kitchen table at present. One and a half more months and then we move, and then I'll have my own desk and room! I'm looking for helpful additions to keep my papers neat and my mind focused. Here's what I've got so far:

Personality Typing and Human Relationships

By Mary C. Tillotson

A phlegmatic and a melancholic are sitting on the beach, soaking up the sun and sipping lemonade. The phlegmatic sighs dreamily and says, “Ahh, this is as good as it gets.”

The melancholic, horrified, says, “Yeah, you’re probably right!”

* * *

The “four temperaments” is an idea going back to ancient Greece which seems to becoming more popular as of late – the idea is that there are four basic personality types, and depending on who you talk to, everyone has all four in different amounts, or everyone has a primary and a secondary. You can read more in-depth about the four temperaments here, or about the Myers-Briggs personality typing here. It’s all very interesting.

It can be liberating to find out that you aren’t quite as weird as you thought, that there are other people with quirks similar to yours. It can be relieving to find out that you’re not necessarily a total failure at life; you just have a different set of strengths and weaknesses than the people who often succeed at the things you have a hard time being awesome at.

It can be helpful to read profiles of personality types that are different from yours – especially those of people you interact with frequently, like spouses, friends, and co-workers. It’s helpful to know that what motivates you might not motivate them, and that they tend to look at problems differently than you do. (One of my earliest experiences reading personality profiles was a confused shock: some people are like this? That explains so much!)

But it’s important not to reduce yourself or anyone else to their temperament or personality type. There are as many kinds of people in the world as there are people, and though we can group people into broad categories, the categories are broad. I know people who score the same four letters on the Myers-Briggs test as I do, yet we are very different people.

In a similar vein, I think it’s important not to let personality typing get in the way of getting to know a real person. Healthy relationships of any sort start by sharing things that aren’t very personal and then progressing gradually into more personal matter. I can say “I’m choleric” or “I’m an ISFP” and you automatically know more about me than maybe you need to know at this point in our relationship. I could tell you, in Myers-Briggs terms, “I’m a T,” which tells you I instinctively make decisions based on logic and objective facts, but it doesn’t tell you how hard I’ve worked to develop my (naturally weak) ability to consider my gut instinct and how the decision will affect everyone else, or whether I’m any good at it.

If you’re looking for insight into your strengths and weaknesses or how different people see the world and act in it, personality typing can be helpful; if you’re looking for your identity or anyone else’s, look elsewhere.

* * *

I know my temperament and my Myers-Briggs type, but I don’t share them publicly and I try not to tell people unless we already know each other well. Do you? What are your thoughts on all this?

And for some fun, if you know your Myers-Briggs type, check out these prayers and stress-heads! (Thanks to Anna and Laura who sent them to me!) (And the joke at the top isn’t mine -- it’s an old one.)

Not All Men Are Creepers

The Rest on the Flight to Egypt by Gerard David, 1510.

By Mary C. Tillotson

Today, in the Catholic Church, we celebrate the feast of St. Joseph, one of the more important feasts on our calendar. We honor St. Joseph as the spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus; as such, he’s a model for husbands and fathers everywhere. He’s a patron of families and workers and all sorts of other things.

This is one of my favorite paintings of St. Joseph. The Holy Family is on its way to Egypt, and St. Joseph is in the background, cutting firewood or harvesting food – doing what he can to make things a little more comfortable for Mary and baby Jesus.

St. Joseph is a good reminder that not all men are creepers – something even virtue-minded people too easily forget.

Remember those modesty debates we used to get into, especially in college when we didn’t have anything more important to talk about? My women friends and I would trek back to our dorms afterward and wonder the same thing aloud: do men exist who aren’t creepy and gross? Here are all these church-going, door-opening, chivalry-endorsing young men who claim they are involuntarily fixated on our private parts unless we’re wearing long skirts and turtlenecks, or whatever their particular standard was (it varied). Let’s all find a convent – quick.

Vote for The Mirror!

The Mirror Magazine was nominated for two Sheenazing awards over at A Knotted Life!

While you're there, be sure to check out the other great blogs she's linked to -- including Julie's Corner With a View, which was also nominated!

Go vote for us! Twice: you'll find us under "Best Under-Appreciated Blog" and "Smartest Blog."

Redeeming "Women's Studies"

By Mary C. Tillotson

A couple weekends ago, my husband and I saw the local college's performance of The Three Musketeers. The actors and set designers and costume-makers and everyone did a fine job, especially considering the limited resources, but I was disappointed with the play itself. The playwright had added a character: D'Artangan's little sister Sabine, who I think was supposed to represent a "women can be strong, too" theme, but was really an enthusiastic but annoying tag-along little sister who mostly got in the way. The three inseparables and D'Artangan are constantly irritated with her, and the play ends with her running off with them to battle some kind of evil, but she doesn't even have a sword. It cheapened the whole job of the musketeers.

At the beginning of the play, D'Artangan sets off for Paris, hoping to become a musketeer, and their father sends Sabine with him -- she's off to Paris to study. As soon as their father is out of sight, she rips off her skirt to reveal pants, then announces her intention to skip school and do something more exciting (I can't remember what) in Paris. Throughout the play she makes comments like "Life isn't very fun for a woman in 17th century France."

It was jarring, and I wanted to protest, but I don't know much about women in 17th century France. In fact, I don't know much about women in most of history. I hear two conflicting narratives: (1) that women were oppressed by men until the 20th century when we finally started breaking free of the patriarchy (from suffrage to birth control), and (2) that the oppression of women is an overblown historical myth, and things weren't near as bad as modern feminist pretend. I have sympathies with both understandings of history.

In Defense of Emotions

By Mary C. Tillotson

Image by Alin Klim

When I was a sophomore in college, I dated a guy, and it wasn't a great relationship. I spent a huge amount of energy struggling with an intense desire to not be dating him alongside an inability to find a good reason why I shouldn't. "I don't want to" is selfish and therefore not a good enough reason (I reasoned) because that was based on emotion.

I spent the beginning of my senior year sighing to a friend that I was having the hardest time in the world getting over this other very attractive man. He was smart, mature, from Michigan, good with kids, and surrounded by plenty of other like-minded women at a college 500 miles away from me, and would graduate two years after I did.

When he asked me out later that fall, I was more relieved than anything else. Oh good. Now I don't have to get over you. We've been married for a little more than a year, and marrying him is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

In both cases, my emotions were right on (hindsight, and some friends I didn't listen to, told me the first guy had a lot more growing up to do), and my reason was off track. I've done some maturing since then, and I've come to realize that my strong hunches are generally on target. It sort of bothers me: like most people, I want to think I make rational decisions instead of emotional decisions. But, at least with me, my emotions are usually wiser.

Let's go back to college for a minute. I remember hearing some people say that women shouldn't learn Greek, or shouldn't earn Ph.Ds, or that women were generally less rational than men. All of this bothered me to the core, and I think much of it came out of the overeager liberal arts college student's zeal to save the world via Aristotle.

I think it's stupid to say women shouldn't learn Greek or earn Ph.Ds; if you're a woman and you want to, go for it. It's wrong to think of women as crazy, hormone-ridden creatures that can't be trusted with anything important or meaningful. It's inaccurate and insulting to think of women as a little less intelligent than men, or not quite up to speed.

But I'm haunted by the fact that my hunches are a better decision-making guide than my reason. It's not just relationships -- it's basically any big decision.

Why I Went to College

By Catherine S.
Guest Contributor

courtesy Kevin Dooley, flickr

Last week, a friend sent me this article by Raylan Alleman, a conservative father who declares it is better for girls not to go to college. Alleman claims that college these days is expensive, morally dangerous, and academically disappointing, and that women can do better for themselves by avoiding it altogether and preparing themselves for their true purpose in life: marriage. Like any (or at least, many) college-educated woman, I immediately laughed it to scorn. However, as I mentally prepared my biting rebuttal, I came across other online reactions to the article, and I began to question my position. Anonymous snarky comments and my knee-jerk reaction only strengthen Raylan Alleman's original argument. Because I have a degree, I automatically know better than some man online, don’t I? Sadly, I’m the woman with the education, and yet I can't do any better than scream through cyberspace at a stranger. I reacted in an antagonistic, militant, feminist manner. This is why Alleman doesn’t want to send his daughter to college: because she will go to college and get her degree and fly her “educated woman” flag without having the initial decency to consider the opposite side of an argument, without being able to logically distinguish between an incorrect argument and a poorly-made one. Alleman has expressed his opinion with sweeping generalizations and what seems to be little knowledge of many conservative colleges across the country, but as a father, he has every right to express his concern with the dangers that surround a college-bound child.

That said, although I agree with his principles, I disagree with his points.

Bravery and Babes

By Julie Baldwin

I've never felt very brave. I was picked on a lot growing up because I was shy, and I stuttered, and wore glasses. And even after the stuttering was "fixed", I had a hard time not allowing my feelings to be swayed or hurt by other people. This feeling has lasted for many years, although I grew much better at masking it. In the meanwhile, I developed as a writer.

I joined the high school paper, Lion's Roar, my freshman year, as an outlet for writing. It was so fun seeing my name in print and contacting people, asking them what they thought, collecting the facts, writing up a story. I remember when I was named Sports Editor, one of two juniors who got a spot usually reserved for a senior. I was so proud of my little section, which I grew from three writers to six. Our space grew too - a whole page!

I had the glued-to-my-phone pre-req. down

I went to college and decided I didn't want to do journalism any more, so I didn't sign up for the college paper. But then, I got drawn into the independent paper, and spent my entire college career editing, writing, promoting and nurturing it. The tiny staff again grew under me, as I pulled in every resource I could, helping my writers and making them feel wanted as much as they were needed. I hurt a lot of feelings with my edits and editorials and "Hillsdalians of Genius" columns, but I didn't stroke any egos, and I told the truth, and people respected the paper. I even got along well with the journalism department, and got a scholarship to write book reviews for it my senior year.

It seemed the obvious answer, then, when asked what I was going to do after college: journalism.

Statehouse reporting was thrilling, but my work environment was not. I worked for a non-profit, who accepted a grant to fund two journalism positions. Though I was successful, my articles were well-received and picked up by outside outlets, it was a difficult work environment for me, and for personal-affecting-professionalism reasons, I quit.

That was one of the scariest things I had ever done, and it changed my whole life. I had accepted that job because it was great cub reporter experience and I was two hours from home. But now I had quit, and I was thinking about the other job I turned down in Washington, D.C. Was that the better choice?

I decided not to pursue journalism when I returned home, which my journalism mentor severely disagreed with; he told me not to waste my talent. Since then, it's been an interesting ride: family business, nannying, freelance, and plenty more "not-for-profit" writing -- as well as more family time, a new family, marriage, a new city, a baby, and a whole new set of challenges. And I'm happy, even though a part of me twinges to be back in journalism.

And what does this have to do with bravery? I still don't think of myself as particularly brave. I'm still introverted and still have glasses. But I've tasted "failure" - I know what it's like not to have what you want. I know what it's like to think you know what you want. I've known surprise, and I've known success. I know what it feels like to stand at the crossroads, and make another decision you know is going to change your life. Then another. Then another. I keep pressing forward. That's brave. That's living.

We all live with the consequences, whether our action by active or passive. And can you live with regrets? Sure. That's one way to live, but it's not a preferable way - because regret stains all future successes if you allow it. Or you can learn from your mistakes, which is my attitude: I have only one real regret, and that was letting people lead me to think I wasn't worth it: as a friend, as a girlfriend, as a student, as a writer.

That is a lie, no matter who you are. 

We all have potential. We're all on a road to Damascus. None of us have completed the work we were put on this earth to do; most of us are still discerning what that work is, exactly. We should keep working, keep seeking, keep trying, keep loving, keep going.

In Jennifer Aist's book Babes in the Woods: Hiking, Camping & Boating with Babies and Young Children (my current read), she tells parents back off a bit and to let their kids explore (while still under supervision, of course!):

Watch an eight-month-old baby crawl around a coffee table. If left to explore it on his own, he'll run into it a few times, bonk his head on the bottom of it as he tries to crawl under it, and maybe even get a bit frustrated by it. Very quickly, this same baby will learn to duck going around that coffee table, slow down to avoid crashing into it, and generally learn how to be safe around it. The baby with "hover parents" never has an opportunity to learn by trial and error. So though this baby may never bonk his head on the coffee table at home, he also never develops the skills to avoid bonking his head on any other coffee table. Teach children the skills they need to safely negotiate any coffee table they may ever encounter, and you have given your children an incredible gift. You will have taught your child to be capable. 

Remember, frustration teaches children problem solving. Boredom teaches children creativity.

This is the same for adults as well. Be brave enough not to squander the chances in life to try, to "fail", to be who you want to be. You are exactly who you're supposed to be, and that is a true gift to the rest of us.

Republished with author's permission.

What is "True Womanhood"?

By Mary C. Tillotson

Stages of womanhood, 1849

I don't know if I love or hate that question, but it's one that's fascinated/bothered me since I was about 14.

I went through an "any desire to look good means you're vain and probably trying to get guys interested in sex" phase through most of high school and into college. I wore baggy T-shirts from the groups and clubs I was in, but somehow managed to always wear a blue one (I don't think blue will ever not be my best color, except navy) when certain attractive men were around.

Following this, I fretted briefly over whether I was obligated to like shoe shopping. This gave way to a "the ideal woman is tough and strong!" phase, followed by a "the ideal woman is weak and frail and beautiful" phase, followed by an identity crisis. That brings us to yesterday. Yesterday, I felt pretty balanced. I was comfortable letting the men do most of the heavy lifting, but if I didn't help, it was out of laziness, not a belief that I ought not. I was willing to admit that I would like to be one of those women who just always looks good. I thought motherhood was the zenith of femininity and I thought the women at IUseNFP are really cool.

Most of that I still believe.

You're Doing It Wrong And Someone Can't Believe You're Wearing That

By Mary C. Tillotson

Some days, it’s tiring to be a woman. No matter what you do, you’re doing it wrong, and someone can’t believe you’re wearing that.

Jessica Alba

We judge each other for our career and family choices (you’re either a terrible mother or wasting your talent, or both). We judge each other for our weight on both ends of the spectrum (did you really need that second piece of cheesecake? Why aren’t you eating anything?). We judge each other for our emotions. We judge each other for the number and spacing of kids. We judge each other for our clothing – too conservative, too revealing, too businesslike, too manly, too ugly, too clashing, too good to be authentic.

Like you’re a slob who doesn’t care what she looks like and a ditz who cares too much about looks. If you’re ugly, no one should take you seriously; if you’re pretty, you probably don’t have any brains.

Like somewhere out there there’s an ideal balance of physical beauty, poise, diet, emotional finesse, and fashion sense. If we’re going to be worth anything, we need a perfect body, impeccable fashion sense, and the impossible skill of being sensitive to others’ emotions but not to our own. Anything short of that and judge! judge! judge! Even for the select few women who seem to have accomplished this, judge for making it too much of a priority, and judge if any minor thing goes wrong in your life. Because you thought you had it all together, didn’t you? Judge!

Pizza, abortion, slavery, and lessons learned: Seven quick takes for, well, Wednesday

By Mary C. Tillotson

I've seen the "7QT Friday" on blogs here and there. These aren’t as quick as I was hoping, but here are seven quick takes for – Wednesday!

#1

A couple weeks ago, on a Thursday, I took our car into the shop because it was squealing, clunking, and shining a light on the dashboard. Our mechanic (who I’d highly recommend to anyone in the area) gave me three or four diagnoses, so I planned to drop off the car Monday for a marathon of fixing and replacing.

On Friday at about 4:45 p.m., I got stranded in the Staples parking lot because – what do you know? – the car didn’t start. I did not want to call my husband – it was the second day in a row he’d stayed home sick and he was gearing up for a Sunday flight to Vermont for a five-day conference, so he didn’t need one more thing on his plate. But what else was I going to do?

A couple friends picked him up, and they met us at Staples. Fortunately, our car is a stick-shift (I never thought I would say that) so we were able to bump-start it, which involves pushing it till it’s rolling at a walking speed and letting the clutch out quickly.

We thanked our friends, drove home, and parked on a hill so we could bump-start it ourselves and drop it off the mechanic on Saturday, adding “replace starter” to our already expensive litany. We walked from the mechanic to our church for Saturday evening Mass, bummed a ride home from some neighbors, and found a friend to drive my husband to the airport at about 7:30 Sunday morning.

It was stressful and frustrating, but nothing extraordinary. This sort of thing happens to everyone. As I started catching my breath after it all, I wondered: what if I had been sick, too? What if we’d had two kids under the age of three? What if we were new to the area and didn’t have local friends we were comfortable asking for help? None of that would be out of the ordinary, either. Then I thought: How on earth do other adults handle situations like this?!?

Then I found my answer: imperfectly. That’s how other adults handle situations like this. That’s how we handled ours, and how we’re likely to handle similar situations in the future.

It was an oddly freeing discovery.

In Memory of a Sister: Sally Giauque

By Julie Baldwin

Fall 2007

Last week, a woman died at 85 years old. Her name was Sally, and I met her when I was a sophomore in college and "went Kappa" - that is, joined Kappa Kappa Gamma, a woman's fraternity. Sally was one of the chapter advisers at Hillsdale College. An alumna of the college and chapter, she dedicated herself to our house and its members. She would arrive every Monday, in time for dinner and meeting, and stay in the guest room. She was stylish, smart, and was always reminding us of standards and how to be ladies.

I had a tough time being a Kappa the first few semesters; perhaps it is my penchant for not being told by other people who I am, and people like to label "sorority girls." Or maybe I never thought that I quite fit in, though I met a few of my best friends in that house. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed; I never seemed to have enough time to join in the more fun activities, as I prioritized school and the newspaper, accepting only required duties as my service and standard. Kappa wasn't what I expected of her, but maybe, as I thought later, I wasn't what Kappa expected either.

While I struggled with my collegiate career at Kappa, I always looked to Sally. She was a lady. She told us chewing gum made us look like cows. If we were late to meeting, she kindly informed us that it was better form to use the back door. How we dressed was important - and not for fashionable or keeping up appearances reasons (which I rebelled against): but because we were Kappas, and that was something to be proud of, and our dress reflected the care we took in our appearance, in our house, and in ourselves. This I could embrace, understand, and welcome.

Wandering Home: Reflections on Today's Moral Climate

my ninja husband

By Mary C. Tillotson

Home is supposed to be that place of tranquility and comfort, where you can be yourself and know you are loved. It’s supposed to be stable and unchanging. It’s hard for me to imagine that right now: I’ve got a candle and a cup of tea with me, but my kitchen is cluttered with an overflowing wastebasket and a clothes drying rack, complete with two towels and three filthy washrags. I don’t even know where half our stuff is. We helped the previous tenants move out Monday evening and crashed on the floor late that night. It’s been cleaning, cleaning out, and reorganizing since then. My husband is working 9 to 5, and while his elbow grease and moral support were a huge help in the evenings, most of the home-making is falling to me.

I haven’t lived in the same place for more than a year since I was in high school, but it still seems odd to move so often. I don’t like it. There’s a kind of restlessness and instability; also, a holding back, trying not to get too attached to any particular place or routine. A part of me aches to be settled. I know I shouldn’t complain: moving frequently is a normal part of life in my generation. Our world is bigger now; with the internet, freeways, and airports, far-away opportunities are often more available than nearby ones.

There’s an underpinning restlessness to our generation, it seems.