Confessions of a Procrastinating Filer

I have another Austin Kleon blog to share, this one about pilers and filers. It got me thinking about the state of my studio and how I might operate in a perfect world of my choosing. At first, I immediately said, well I'm a filer of course. But one look in my studio would have anyone else saying that I'm a piler. Well, maybe when I'm working the piles stack up, like in the above photo when I had so much spread out working on those art journaling pages. But that all got put away, the papers especially into that bin, which is a type of filing. Piling is temporary, filing is my default action.

Binders full of quilt documentation files

I perhaps got my first taste of filing as a grade school reader when my mother took me to the library to find books, and I eventually was introduced to the card catalog. I adored using the card catalog, especially as I got older and used it to help me do research. I have to say I miss it quite a bit, even though computer searches are supposed to be faster and more efficient. You're talking to someone here who hated using a slide rule in one of my high school science classes and used to race a friend to see who could come up with calculations quicker, him with his slide rule or me with pencil and paper. I usually won. Anyway, I've always enjoyed organizing things, and most of the paid jobs I've had required filing and organizing. Right up my alley.

Pile at the end of the table example 1 & 2

So how to explain that my studio has always fallen victim to stacks and piles instead of everything neatly filed away? I DO know the answer to that and procrastination is a major culprit. I can sort what happens when I enter my studio with something into these categories (see? I even "file" my actions!):

1. I don't have time at the moment to put/file the thing away in its proper place - I'll do it later.
2. I'm not entirely sure where it should go - I'll need more time to decide its proper place.
3. It is something I want to get to soon so don't want to put it away - out of sight out of mind.
4. I've run out of room in the proper place for it and need to add more or reconfigure my storage.
   

These are excuses and it is why things get so out of hand. I almost laugh at number 3 which sounds valid at the time but soon those things I don't want to forget so leave out are soon buried under even more things of the same category. And how many times have I said and acted upon "If I just had the right storage units . . ." only to end up in the same quandary on down the road as I add more interests and more supplies/materials?

Some of what is in this pile is from when I moved into my current location. It's where I ran out of steam as well as ideas of where to put these last things unpacked. I've never gotten back to it in ten years, although I do occasionally dig down there to take a look, no more sure where to "file" these things than when I first abandoned them. What is on the top became a combination of #2 and #4. Those handmade books I've been learning to make? What are not gifted I really have no place for, my bookcase being totally full. I know others in that online group have made small bookcases to set on a counter or store them in a bin. I have so many bins of various sizes and uses as well as drawers that I've run out of room for more.

But in reality, this kind of chaos does bother me, especially when I go looking for something that I think I know exactly where it is and it is not. So much wasted time looking. I'd much rather everything be stored like my fabric, filed with a system I settled on long ago for most of it, several baskets for others of specific kinds and a narrow but tall chest of drawers for all my reproduction fat quarters; I pretty much can go to my stashes and put my finger on exactly what I'm looking for in short order. This goes for the majority of my tools and marking pens and tapes organized in that hardware cabinet of drawers my late husband gave me when he ran out of things to file in his work area.

And yet, there are still places where some fabrics are laid out on the floor (one of a kinds that I didn't want to fold) and bags of silk ties waiting for me to "file" them with the rest hanging by color in the closet, and a project or two that I think I will get to sooner than later, that combination of nowhere to put them and not wanting them out of sight out of mind.

According to psychologist Linda Silverman, “Filers” tend to be verbal/sequential thinkers and “Pilers” tend to be visual/spatial thinkers." But what if you're both, as I think I am? Austin seems to agree, that it depends on what you are doing whether a file or a pile suits your needs:

"All of these “versus” type situations can be rethought as spectrums and/or creative tensions. There are times when I want to access that sequential part of my brain and bring order to things, and filing does that, but there are other times I want to access my visual brain, and piles help."

I agree. I work in both worlds. But honestly, not all of my piles can be justified as furthering my creativeness. They are just signs of my indecision and resulting procrastination and I really need to clean them up. Perhaps consider it spring cleaning if nothing else.

How do you see yourself, as a filer or a piler or both?