Introverts N Business

I keep a pretty lean house but I do collect information. Fortunately, I stopped accumulating more and more books some time ago – now I recycle and keep my load to the room on my existing bookshelves – but paper and notes and files? Fuggetaboudit! I am a junkie.

So, what did I do today? I spent about 3 hours clearing out my one desktop paper basket. It’s about 3 inches high. Careful consideration of each piece of paper put half the content of that basket into the recycle bin pile. About 25% went into actual files and the rest stays put for action. If only I could be as scrupulous before putting that paper into the file bin in the first place. Wouldn’t that save me time and angst?

Now that I’ve – once again – emptied the thing of everything but information or papers about which I’ve determined I still want to do something, can I keep the the content of this lovely wire basket below the 1/2 inch mark? I suppose I could get a shorter basket to shorten the time between accumulation and sorting, but I think it would be more effective if I could take just a little more time and thought before putting stuff in it in the first place! We’ll see.

Introvert Quality or Something Else?

According to the Clifton StrengthsFinder(R) Profile assessment my fifth characteristic/strength is “Input,” which indicates I might collect facts, books, or tangible objects. For the longest time I didn’t know how that applied to me. I did finally figure it out – duh! I collect ideas, notes, books and articles on topics of interest. I also happen to collect rocks and crystals and a few shells. They sit on shelves, my desk and window shelves around my house.

Perhaps the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) doesn’t help answer this question, after all.

I know at least one extrovert who also collects books, information and paper stuff, so I realize that it may not have anything to do with being an introvert. But, I also know that introverts live on the inside with our ideas, so I wonder if there are more of us who collect things of one sort another.

What is your experience with stuff? Introverts and Extroverts are welcome to comment.