Paperwork

I used to be abysmal at doing my paperwork.  I hated to file things or deal with things that needed some type or response or had to be handled.  I would pile them into a pile on my desk or in a drawer beside my computer and wait until I couldn’t pile or shove anything more into the space before I’d reluctantly go through the stack.

I got better over time, but mostly it was external forces that assisted in the betterment of my paperwork stack management.   Namely, electronic billing.   Electronic everything.   My non-junk mail was a fraction of what I received in previous years.   What was mailed via paper was typically echoed in some form electronically.   Most things, once removed from the mailbox mostly went into the recycle bin.  

Bills started to pay themselves from my bank account directly.   Physical correspondence from friends and family moved mostly to electronic means of communication.   The vast bulk of “paperwork” I’d had in previous years was ones and zeroes, transmitted electronically via copper and fiber.

But there was still some things that needed to be in physical format.   Things that I would still shove into that drawer on the side of my desk and ignore for as long as possible.   My husband does “paperwork” on a regular basis.   He seems to like to start doing paperwork and take so long in the doing that by the time he’s half-way through he’s had to shove it back in the corner of his desk in a large stack to make time for other things.   Before he gets back to the job again it’s piled back to the original stack height.   Or, at least that’s what it looks like to me.   He would disagree though.

This past week it was time—time to do the paperwork.  It had piled up in the small drawer to the maximum two inches drawer height and I had to handle things.   I didn’t remember the last time I’d gone through the drawer, as I save it for only the most important of things I don’t feel like filing.  

I started at the top and as I got lower and lower down I was surprised to be getting back to the early months of 2017.   I even found pictures of my daughter’s eyes under anesthesia from 2016.   It had apparently been longer than I’d realized.

The drawer is now empty.   It’s a good feeling, knowing I have several years of shoving space available now in my desk drawer for paperwork I want to avoid doing.

The Big Boy Update:  We were asking my son to do something before he was allowed to have his dessert tonight.   I think it was a putting your shoes up and socks in the dirty clothes kind of request.   He was exasperated at us, saying, “I feel like you guys don’t know this word called, ‘multitasking’”.   My husband and I had to turn away so he didn’t see us laughing.   He was very cross at us at the time and we just thought he was adorable.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has said to me on several occasions recently when I’ve been trying to answer a question, explain something to her or more likely than not, tell her what she has to do or can’t do.   She’s said in a very uncomplimentary tone, “do you ever stop talking?”  I told her I’d try to be better.   I think it’s too many words for her to process sometimes.   She doesn’t get away with being rude, but there is something that’s hard for her to manage with all the words.   My husband said he had to agree with her sometimes when I got frustrated.