I recently had another eye-opener that was just as stunning as learning that some people don’t make to-do lists and yet they persist. They survive. They even excel. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that many people have an innate ability to compartmentalize thoughts, obligations and time-demands. I’m not put together that way although I often wish that I were. I’m an ‘open-looper’. I have a hard time not thinking about the things that need doing, so doing them is the obvious solution. It makes me productive and often efficient but also a little bit crazy.
How do you deal with all the things that cross your mind, your desk, your digital device? Are you a compartmentalizer or an open- looper? Is your mind like a rodent on a wheel- running endlessly, or a juggler carefully minding many balls? Welcome to the Society of Open Loopers.
At the other end of the spectrum is the person whose mind is like a chest with lots of little drawers each with a sturdy lock, or the bottle sealed tight with a cork. You can put myriad thoughts, tasks and responsibilities in their own little compartments and forget about them until the time seems right.
Most of us fall somewhere between these extremes but we all have our natural tendencies. Sometimes they serve us well and sometimes they swamp us. So we’ve developed coping mechanisms for dealing with the consequences of being ourselves. If you’re quick on the trigger because you don’t want it hanging over your head, sometimes you do things that really didn’t need to be done. And sometimes you do them in a slapdash fashion just to have it done. If you’re inclined to let things ripen in the locked box or corked bottle, they sometimes go from ripe to rotten and you’ve got a mess on your hands.
For one devoted to the notion of a “tight ship”, this little ship in a bottle is a delightful reminder- not just of beauty of things being ship-shape, but of the beauty and utility of the protective compartment. The ship would have been tempest-tossed and surely lost if not for its bottle.
Like the little ship, find your even keel.