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+---
+title: Confessions
+date: '2005-03-18T06:11:42-05:00'
+permalink: /confessions/
+tags:
+    - life
+    - 'to do'
+    - work
+---
+
+I’ve been watching since the beginning of the year, I think — yes, in fact, my first sighting was [Liz](http://mamamusings.net/archives/2005/01/04/fun_with_flying_and_folders.php) back on January 4 — as first one and then another of my blogging pals have been overtaken by the [Getting Things Done](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/plannedobsole-20) virus sweeping the net. And every time I ran across it — somebody linking to [43 folders](http://www.43folders.com/), somebody talking up [Moleskine](http://www.moleskineus.com/), somebody with a copy of GTD on her desk — every time I ran across it I’d feel this visceral yearning to know more.
+
+I’ll admit this now: I’m an organization freak. I love folders, and boxes, and cubbyholes, and shelves, and labels, and so on. [Hold Everything](http://www.holdeverything.com) used to be my favorite catalog in the world (only recently replaced by [Levenger’s](http://www.levengers.com)). As folks who’ve been to any of my recent places of residence could tell you, I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper, but what I lack in clean, I make up for in neat. I can’t abide clutter, and I can’t stand not knowing where everything in my life is. I’ve had a PDA since late 1998, and before that had a series of intricately organized day planners. And I’m completely dependent on these calendaring systems — if I don’t write it down, I simply won’t remember it. Period.
+
+Despite all this, though, my life has this year spun completely out of control. I’m teaching a full load of courses (which is an admittedly cushy 2/2, but at a very, very handholdy college), I’ve got something on the order of 30 advisees, I’m first or second reader on (I think) 8 senior theses, and — and these are the things that are killing me — I’m the chair of the Media Studies Program (for which I led a self-study this year) and the chair of the faculty Executive Committee (which has me pulling my hair out on a regular basis).
+
+Did I mention that I have a book manuscript due to the publisher at the end of this month? And that I’ve spent all year working on a second edited book project, the last pieces of which are also due to their publisher at the end of this month? And that I’ve still got that overdue article — now two and a half months overdue — hanging over my head?
+
+I’ve spent every moment since September feeling as though I was forgetting something, as though there was some small but crucial task that I’d left undone, that was going to come back to haunt me. I cannot relax. My sleep alternates between total oblivion — less like sleep than like getting knocked out — and fitful. I dream about work nonstop. And no matter what I’m working on, I always feel like I ought to be doing something else.
+
+And the funny thing is, everytime I stumbled across GTD this spring, I’d think, “man, when I’ve got some time, I really need to sit down and read that.”
+
+I don’t have the time. But this week, after completely melting down in a whiny email exchange with an always supportive but in this case slightly taken aback mentor, I’ve decided that I don’t have time *not* to read it either. Because I think I’m taking years off my life with stress right now.
+
+Updates soon, from a calmer me, I hope.
+