from post-its to self discovery (part 1)

You know how people who are deathly afraid of spiders sometimes joke that when they come across a freaky spider in the corner of their bedroom the only reasonable thing to do is to burn the house down, move, and restart anew somewhere else?

That’s kind of me.

Not with spiders but definitely with things like paper files and technology. Last week at work I looked around and saw the banker boxes full of files from my predecessor (in addition to the file cabinets themselves), and then glanced back at my computer with its cluttered desktop and the stacks of paper around my workspace and for a second I was like: welp. time to find a new job and move on i guess.

But something amazing happened. I decided to declutter. And it felt great. It was an eye opening moment. Next month, I will have been at my current job for 7 years. SEVEN YEARS. That’s a really long time for me. But honestly in those seven years I haven’t referred to one of those inherited files even once. And nothing bad has happened. So… out with the old.

A few years back I was talking to B, then the Exec Director above me, about my professional development goals. He asked me if there was something holding me back that I would like to tackle. I quickly identified my lack of organizational skills. It causes so much unnecessary angst. And on top of that, it makes me a little (or a lot) less efficient than I could be. As I get older, it feels like my mental muscles seems to be atrophying slightly. And at the same time the amount of things I’m somehow expected to remember/keep track of grows. All of this points to the idea that being better organized would be a really valuable thing right about now.

In response to my proposed “development goal,” B suggested that I sign myself up with the Landmark Academy. Have you heard of it? I hadn’t. But I also trusted (and still do) B 100% so if he suggested Landmark, then Landmark it was.

It was a three day seminar of sorts. On the registration forms, I recall seeing some kind of alarming disclaimers about people with pre-existing mental health conditions occasionally having an adverse reaction to the seminars, but I glossed over those. I went in expecting a course in advanced post it note techniques or the latest technology in file management and instead stumbled into a three-day extreme endurance personal growth/self help, kind of a mash up between a Dr. Phil marathon, a zen buddhist retreat, and an ironman. It was a trip.

Just before I went in to the meeting space in a remarkably nondescript strip mall in the suburbs of Denver, B sent me a text. you won’t like all of it. but take what works for you and don’t worry about the rest. (which, p.s. is exactly what they say in the intro to alanon for all new visitors. it’s really good advice.)

(to be continued tomorrow…)