Place and Being Organized

Can where you live determine your level of organization? For twenty of the past 22 years, we’ve lived out-of, but close-to, town. Therefore when we’re doing a plumbing, electrical or construction project we have the luxury of being able to go to town the three or four times it takes to get everything we need to get the job done. Our closeness to town is enabling that way (for the two years we lived in town it was still just 3 or 4 trips to various stores per project). But how about those people who live so far from town that they need to be sure to get everything they need the one time they are in town? That’d be impressive.

The people who live outside cell phone range  have to be even better organized. We all used to be a bit better organized that way. It seemed like only a few years ago that I was resisting getting a cell phone because I said it was for people with poor planning. Everyone used to make plans ahead of time. You had a designated time and place to meet. If the other party did not show up within an unstated but somehow mutually agreed to timeframe, well, we followed the unstated but somehow mutually agreed plan B. If one were meeting someone in town, the waiting time could be just 10-15 minutes but for a remote meet it could be up to 1-1/2 hours to wait until switching to plan B. If the other party didn't show up, you’d ask them about it the next time you saw them. Now no one plans, we – me included -- just call to smake and to change plans. It’s a great time saver. No more waiting and wondering for those precious 10-15 minutes. I’m sure our time is much more valuable today compared to years past and taht we put that saved time to high value uses. I don’t mean to sound like a crotchety old guy. OK, it would have been nice to have been in communication with the people I waited 1-1/2 hours for at a remote site and then had to make the call to switch to plan B. Knowing they were delayed much longer than that could have saved me some time and some worry. But come to think of it, that area is probably still out of cell phone range. So I guess there are still some places where planning is an essential skill.