Somebody Please Tell Me Organization is Over Rated?

This year,  one of my New Year's resolutions is to get organized. I may be in over my head. To say that I am unorganized is quite possibly the understatement of the century. I know where everything is. At least, what state everything is in. Of course seldom leaving New York narrows the possibilities down considerably. You know that person who is constantly digging in their over sized, over stuffed purse, looking frantically for their phone, keys, lip balm, lunch...that would be me. My  friends have gotten panicky calls asking them to let me in places where I've left my phone behind. Most of them double check now before we go any where, just to make sure I have everything that I came in with.

Another resolution was to rebuild my career. It was one thing to be disorganized, when I had a husband to pick up the slack. But now that I am solely responsible for the day to day running of the household, we may be in trouble. This is the kind of situation where my kids go to school without pants or wearing sandals over their socks in December. So to start my resolution off right, I have been researching the subject of organization and work-life balance. I have read dozens of  magazine articles, blog entries, Internet sites all claiming to be able to take the maelstrom that is my life and turn it into a sea of tranquility. Yeah, right.

The most common suggestions are making lists and keeping calendars. Lists, in theory, are a great idea. The problem is, I forget to write things down. On the off chance that I do manage to make a list, it gets left on the table for the cats to play with. Seriously, I can not remember squat. I forget to return important calls. I forget to take food out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. I forget to go to appointments. Seriously, it's a huge problem. (See: Children going to school without pants)

Calendars can work well, as long as you remember to not only write stuff down, but to actually look at them once in a while. I have a great calendar on the kitchen wall that I love. It has a grid for each member of the family.  Every now and again I even look at it. I tried using an electronic organizer. I thought that setting it to beep to let me know when I had an appointment might help. It worked when I remembered to enter data. Unfortunately Stone decided to play with it. He got mad that it wasn't a video game and stomped on it. The screen shattered, and all the time I had spent painstakingly entering all of his occupational therapy and speech therapy appointments went down the drain. Chances are it would have ended up in the bottom of my purse anyway, never to be seen again. They could do an archaeological dig in my purse. I'm betting there is a lost tribe of pygmies living in there, eating my granola bars and making long distance calls on my cell phone.

I may just be a hopeless case. But at least at this exact moment, I know right where my cell phone is. Um, we are in New York, right? Can somebody call me? Please?