Dun dun duuuun! My New Blog!

What is a Skizness?
OK, first off -- I'm gonna answer the first question. Skizness is my business. What the heck is a Skizness? Take "Business", misspell it to Bizness, and the sub in my initials... and you got yourself a SKIZNESS. Skizness is my (SK's) business.

Anyhow, this blog is all about my business, although by business I mean more along the lines of "None of your business" except for the fact that apparently I think it IS some of your business since I'm posting this on the Internet. What I'm saying (in my own convoluted way) is that this is my blog, and I don't intend it to get personal or political, and I'd like to use it to share stuff that is hopefully either entertaining or informative to people.

Taxes and Safe Places
I just got done with my taxes a few weeks ago. I had made sure all the relevant pieces of information were ready and waiting for me when it came time... but I made one mistake. I had filed the government-issued result from last year under last year's taxes... not for this year's, when I needed it.

The additional catch? When I say "File" I mean "Put in a large envelope with '2007 Tax Stuff' written on it in pencil, and store with all the previous years' tax information in some place safe".

Let me explain something: When I put something somewhere safe, believe me, it's safe. The problem being is that 'safe' is a place that made sense at the time, and even makes sense at the previous time, but is the place I will NOT THINK OF WHEN I NEED IT.

"Safe", in this case, meant it was stored with the college books I figured I might need to reference some day unexpectedly. But I wasn't looking for my college books. I was looking in places I figured would make sense to put tax information. Places like filing cabinets. Or in some unlabelled box under my bed. Not neatly in the new large black storage bin I had gotten to store various things too valuable to toss but could be forgotten about until needed.

In the words of Bill Cosby: "Now, I told you that story so I could tell you this..."
It made me realize that I seriously need to get more organized. I have enough 'important papers' to make a paper maché decoy of myself if I had to. (A very important paper maché decoy... well, actually a formally very important paper maché decoy)

The really funny thing is that I'm really an organized person, but only in short bursts. Things like text documents, projects (I've been told I'm a talented project manager by my boss), and information I excel at organizing in a clear, meaningful way. It just stops dead right as soon as the rest of my life gets involved. I'm not so bad that I need professional help, but ... well, a LITTLE help might be nice. I am afflicted with a minor (in my eyes) case of pack-ratisson's disease, but it's not filling up a garage or anything. (Mostly 'cause I don't have a garage)

The things that give me problems are the ones that are really important -- like say a birth certificate -- but you don't USE them so you forget about them. The killer thing is that when you need them, and you don't have them, you're hosed. These are usually the same sort of things you shouldn't carry around with you either because they're a pain to replace if something ever happens to them (you can't replace them at all).

And why don't I just put it in my filling cabinet? Uhh...
... because my sock drawer is closer?

Well, regardless... I need to start getting organized. I have personal and business stuff, and I'm going to have to file it in a way that it's easy to find, safe but not so safe that I can't find/get to it in under an hour, and out of the way because my space is at a premium right now.

Time to start look'n around. I'll post if I find anything.