ornoth

Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?: I am the most organized person you have ever heard of. I constantly surprise and amaze even the most anal-retentive people. I actually scare most “normal” people, because I combine an obsessive degree of organization with an inhuman level of competence, yielding an incisive, near-infallible mind that is computerlike in its effectiveness and efficiency.
Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?: At present my preferred method of planning is a paper-based system which I designed and developed. The calendar section contains two weeks of time/date dependent appointments, along with recurring appointments and multi-day appointments. I have a “need to buy” section, a “general to-do list”, a “future LiveJournal posts” section, a list of “long-term to-dos”, a list of high-priority social contacts I want to cultivate, a “DargonZine to-do list”, a list of my present DargonZine writing projects, and a list of DargonZine stories which I need to critique. Items are added or carried over to the next sheet as needed.

Items which are completed are lined out in red marker; items which I do not complete are crossed out in blue marker. In addition, items which will eventually appear in OrnothLand are given red boxes, which are checked off when I have added them to the Web site. Anything DargonZine-related gets lined out with a thin red pen, rather than the usual thick one, until I have posted about it in the project “news” post that I send to my writers each week, at which time it gets the thick red line.

All this fits on one side of an 8½ by 11 sheet of paper. I generally do not carry this planner with me.

In the past I’ve been known to use the Xircom (nee Franklin) REX as a PDA. It’s a PCMCIA card that’s also a PDA. Unfortunately, Franklin was bought by Xircom was bought by Intel who then just decided to stop making consumer electronics of any type, so there is no more REX. I have never used any other PDA or Palm device. I used Microsoft Outlook briefly, before concluding that I could write a better system myself.

Note that this doesn’t include any task-specific planners, such as the DargonZine global status report, the three DZ publication queues and schedules, my cycling graphs and logs and planners, the numerous personal task lists that I maintain in Ilium Software’s ListPro (formerly Netmanage Ecco).
Would you say that your desk is organized right now?: My desk is, of course, perfectly organized. I have a roll-top desk with fourteen separate compartments, two small drawers, and four large drawers. The compartments hold: (1) paid bills; (2) business cards, letter opener, and stereo remote controls; (3) unpaid bills due in the next 15 days; (4) checkbooks and payment books; (5) my old REX card (see above); (6) sunglasses and combat knife; (7) and (8) empty, because they’re inaccessible behind my PC; (9) wallet cards that I don’t need to carry daily, such as wholesale club card, calling card, grocery store cards, and blackjack betting strategy; (10) computer reference cards for Javascript, perl, CSS, Kedit, emacs, Adobe Type Library; (11) infrequently-used reference material such as floor plans to the Museum of Fine Arts and Boston Public Library; (12) legal documents such as my passport, mother’s will, safe deposit box keys; (13) computer speakers and CDs full of MP3s; (14) folder with resume material, plus DargonZine folders including printouts of the queue of stories to be reviewed, a printout of the issue currently in production, and printouts of the stories I’m currently working on. The small drawers contain (1) software installation CD-ROMs; (2) old computer punch cards (remember those, kids?) for use as notepads. The drawers contain (1) pens, stapler, tape, the top-drawer usual desk stuff; (2) garbage computer stuff, including voice microcassette recorder and my collection of four dozen Caps Lock keys; (3) Visa and ATM receipts for the past year; (4) computer equipment, including blank CD-ROMs, digital camera, media reader, canned air, and system backup CDs. The desk also has a pull-out witing surface, which is where I keep my bi-weekly planning paper.
Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?: CDs are sorted by artist and subsorted by date of initial release. Compilations go at the top, except for CMJ compilations, which are at the bottom. The dozen annual Orny Sampler compilations are also in a separate section. Genres are mixed.

Books have always been a royal pain in the ass, due to nonstandard sizing. I vastly prefer trade paperbacks for their uniformity and efficient storage. The latter are stored, again, by author and subsorted by original publication date. I’ve never found an adequate method of storing overside books; some are stored by topic, and some are stored by size. I have separate shelves for computer reference books, philosophy, sexuality, Roman history, Boston’s topographical and architectural history, writing, cycling, and languages. There’s also a separate shelf in the living room that highlights a rolling list of the last two dozen books I’ve read.

I only own three DVDs (since I have no player or television, for that matter). They are piled in my CD cabinet. Two are animated feature films, and the third is the DVD highlighting the 2002 Dargon Writers’ Summit in Scotland that Dargon writer Victor Cardoso produced for the group.
What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize?: I have a very firm belief that all complexity is of human origin; there is nothing complex or unpredictable that cannot be traced directly back to people. Specifically, other people, since I make such a substantial effort to be predictable, reliable, responsible, use forethought, and set others’ expectations appropriately, and most people are by nature fallible, inconsistent, capricious, and irresponsible.

From that, you should be able to derive my opinion that the most difficult things I’ve ever had to organize have been other people. Any time I’ve been responsible for others, whether it be one of the wargaming conventions I ran as an adolescent, producing DargonZine as I’ve done for so many years, or the DargonZine Writers’ Summits I’ve organized for the past decade, the hardest job has always been organizing and managing the people involved. It certainly would be easier if everyone else were as compulsively organized as myself, but if that were the case, then those events I have organized would never have been such wonderful accomplishments.

Besides, if everyone were as organized as me, I wouldn’t be so unique in this world anymore, and then I’d need to find another outlet for my smug sense of superiority.

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