Organization = More Time

I'm a failure. For years I have been trying to teach my boys that if they are organized it will allow them get the best use of their time, and that will give them more free time. Alas, they still don't get it.

The youngest is a little better about it than the oldest, but they are both a long way from getting it.

I recently saw my oldest's flash drive on the floor in the playroom. I wanted to pick it up and put it in a safe place, but I didn't. I figured he knew where it was, and if I moved it he would never find it.

Flash forward to this morning. I awoke to an email telling me he was driving home to get his flash drive as it had information he had to have. Now it takes him at least 30 minutes to drive home when there is no traffic, and this morning he was coming at morning rush hour. He came home, and looked on the floor, no flash drive. I helped him look, the youngest helped him look. I told him I had not seen the flash drive since that one day on the floor and I thought he had taken it with him.

I had to go get ready for work, and he left before I got out of the shower, but he did not find his flash drive.

He had to drive back to campus, another 30 minutes or more.

Why he didn't call and ask me to look for the flash drive before driving here ... I don't know.

Why was the flash drive on the floor to start with ... I don't know.

Why can't he put important, small items, in the same location each time, like one of the many containers sitting around his room to put items in ... I don't know.

Tonight he is very stressed. He is running out of time for all the projects due next week.

I am sitting here biting my tongue because I so want to say that he wasted at least an hour today looking for something that he was careless with when a few seconds more and he could have put it in the proper place, like his laptop case.

I can't tell you how many hours of my life have been spent looking for things these boys have laid down and can't find, and that has to be added to the many times I have forgotten where I have put things.

Now, I'm not perfect in any way, but I do put my important items in places where I can find them.

If these boys could learn to narrow down the places where they put their important items it would cut down on these hunting expeditions, and they would have more time, and the oldest at least would be less stressed.