In his monthly newsletter, Balancing Act®, Alan Weiss writes succinctly about being organized and going overboard with order. Here is his article in full:

Regimen or compulsion?

My bias is that we need to organize parts of our lives that are important. This varies in its significance.

I suppose if someone knows where to find something quickly, that’s the point, no matter how bad the clutter may appear to an observer But I don’t want my surgeon asking no one in particular, "Where did I leave that clamp?"

Creating a regimen around an exercise schedule, or work responsibilities, or family obligations, or civic and social commitments, enables most people to be more efficient and, ironically enough, more flexible. (In common parlance: multi-tasking.)

But an excessive regimen can become a compulsion, which is the height of inflexibility and at the margins of a behavioral disorder. (OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, refers to an obsession with an idea and a compulsion about behavior.)

I’ve met people who have decided to remove all fats from their foods, to the extent that they concoct strange replacements, the pursuit consumes their social lives, and, to me, they look far more unhealthy than if they allowed a moderate amount of fat to enter their systems.

Exercise is a great regimen, for mind and body, but the people I see running in rain, snow, fog, and other hazardous conditions I think are more compulsive than smart. Wouldn’t a treadmill suffice for that day? And would your health be drastically affected if you skipped one day? I work out three times a week with a personal trainer, but I don’t beat myself up when I can’t get there because of other commitments. Nor do I compensate for it through some forced exercise. (The trainer beats me up enough for the both of us.)

We’ve seen people whose desks are beyond orderly—the pencils must be the same length and aligned perfectly, the phone pad squared against the phone. We recognize that as "over the edge." But there are also subtle routines which also form compulsions which we too easily overlook.

An orderly life is sensible, but a compulsive one is not. Even "order" makes little sense when you sacrifice value for the sake of order. I’ve seen restrictions placed on guests, pets, and even children to the extent that I wonder why the guests, pets, and children were included to begin with. (I knew a woman so fastidious about her Mercedes that her husband, who bought the care for her, was forbidden to drive it.)

In many cases, I love my ducks in a row. But there are times when I just run through the bushes, because it seems like fun. And, interestingly enough, the ducks on my pond have yet to line themselves up in a row.

©2008 Alan Weiss

Do you move documents from email attachments to your folders regularly? If so, I have a streamlined operation to do this for you. As often happens, I learned something accidentally today and I love the shortcut. So here it is for you.

When you have documents to move from an email attachment to a folder there are three options.

1 – You right click on the attached document and on ’save as’ in the box that opens. Then you select the folder to store it and hit return.

2 – Some of us double click on the document, pdf or other type of attachment to open it with the related application. Then we File Save from the original program. Then we select the folder to store it and hit return. This is by far the longest route to storing attachments.

3 – You can drag and drop an attachment to a folder in an explore window. (This is the shortcut) note: This operation uses an explore window, not internet explorer.

With the email with the attached document open, open explore. The quickest way I know to open an explore window is hold down the windows key (also labeled start key on some keyboards) and tap the E key.

Left click – hold the left mouse button down – over the document(s) you want to move.

Drag and drop the document in the folder where you want to place the document.

Release the left mouse button and viola – it’s done.

The picture below shows this operation. Double click on it to see a full-screen version.

Philadelphia Magazine has an annual issue recognizing excellence among local entities. This year Organizers Inc., the parent company of the Productivity Café is honored as The Best Of. Thank you to those who nominated me and those who put us at the top of the charts. Read about us on page 174.

During a week at a beach house we broke out a couple of games that we hadn’t played in years. Cribbage, putting a puzzle together, and speed Uno filled the time and allowed us to create some good and loud memories. We laughed. We ‘trash talked’ the other players. We played for prizes.

There’s a good reason so many games have become classics – they’re fun, playing them distracts and entertains the players, many games can be enjoyed by a broad range of ages, and they’re fun (I know I said that already… you might have forgotten how fun they are…)

This weekend pull out a game that you have shelved for years, persuade some of your friends to ‘play along’, and enjoy making new memories together.