Organizational Brouhaha

I live for organization. It helps me keep track of things. Whether it is filing emails or organizing the sweaters in my closet by color, I am a fan of keeping things in order. I guess it’s the Type A in me.

So when it comes to planning the wedding, it would be safe to assume that I am just as organized. But the reality is...not so much!

I think I’ve spent the past six months trying to be organized about the wedding. I started with a binder where I stored clipped pictures of ideas from magazines and informational packets from our vendors. I even had checklists of all of the things I needed to do over the course of our engagement. The binder grew in usefulness, growing from eight folder tabs to 16 in just a few short weeks, and actually, I can’t imagine life without it at this point. But, somehow it just wasn’t enough. I began filing emails into a “wedding” folder, which also proved essential. But even that wasn’t enough! Then I resorted to the excel spreadsheet. I sorted each line item by category, e.g. ceremony, reception, flowers, cake, etc., and added a color-coded status line to inform me if the task was done, in progress or not completed.

I had high hopes for the spreadsheet. But I still wasn’t feeling like I had achieved organizational satisfaction.

That was almost two months ago. Since then, I’ve abandoned some of my usual tactics and am now living “on the edge.” I still use the binder, religiously sort emails and refer to the spreadsheet, but more often I write notes and reminders and stick them all around my office and our apartment. That and I put reminders into my Outlook calendar so my blackberry buzzes at me at odd times of day. I think that may have been what I needed all along. While I had the tools in place before – I didn’t have an enforcer. Materials sitting in a binder and emails stored in a folder don’t remind you to call the florist or choose a cake design.

Now that we have less than two months to go, I’m sure all of my tactics will fly out the window and we’ll just be doing what we can to get everything done. And hopefully not forget anything....