12 May 2009

pigeonhole theory

I know a teacher whose school mail-box, or pigeonhole, was/probably-still-is always overfilled. Chaos, it seemed, near my immaculate and cleared three or four times daily pigeonhole. (OK, so maybe I am a bit AR about communication...mmmmph!)

I asked him, one day long ago, how he coped.

I never check it, he replied. I'm too busy doing other things. I work on the theory that if there is anything important in there, someone else will bring it to my attention. Then, when it is completely overflowing and the office staff complain that nothing more will fit in, or it starts falling on the floor, or at the end of the term when pigeonholes need to be cleared, I put it all in a box and take it home. If I really need anything, it is still there. At the end of the year, I dump it all.

Then he asked "How much time do you waste, reading things you don't need to know about, just because someone put it in your pigeonhole?"




Today I am grateful for the cooing of pigeons (daily dropping their messages of "good fortune" from the roof onto my car...)


Post-posting: I see that this says Monday, but really it is 9.00am Tuesday here and this is Tuesday's post... pigeon post, anyone?

1 comment:

pasticcino said...

There is so much you can safely ignore in this life!

I'll throw away/give away new stuff now, valid discount coupons, all sorts of good things, because I look into the future and see me using it once or never in its useful lifetime, and throwing it away or giving it away years hence. Why keep something you are going to get rid of without using? It's just clutter.

My office is so different now to the one you stayed in only months ago. It's wonderfully, beautifully empty. I have just what I need for the now, and no more. Bliss :-)