Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Fight back against self-organisation

A lovely contrarian piece from Lifehacker: dump your to-do-list. Just do one thing at a time.

I can see the logic in this: when I've listed all I have to do, the heart sinks and then I rebel against the lot. When you've planned your life too systematically, the life-impulse within you is driven to smash the system. A degree of disorder, of randomness, of openness to change, is like opening a window in a stuffy room.

"Delight in Disorder" by Robert Herrick:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

2 comments:

Paddington said...

At my house, once I fix one thing, something else breaks. Yesterday, while trying to install a lock on the patio door, the glass broke.

Sackerson said...

Life gets teejus, don't it?