Purloined Letters They Are Not--They Simply Vanish

Organization (the art of) seems to have reached the level of a profession these days. People who claim an expertise in it have set themselves up in business. Two or three times, when I have mentioned the hopeless disarray of my papers, I have been offered help by these entrepreneurs.

According to a story in View the other day, Stephanie Winston, a New Yorker, has sold 500,000 copies of her book, “Getting Organized,” and now sells her services to corporate executives for up to $1,500 a day.

Obviously, Winston is beyond my reach, but I am hoping to profit from the few words of wisdom she volunteered, gratis, in an interview. There are only four things you can do with a piece of paper, she says. “You can toss it; you can refer it to someone else; you can act on it yourself; you can file it.”

She forgot one: You can lose it.

She calls her system TRAF (Toss, refer, act, file). All paper must move, she says, and the sooner a decision is made about it the better.

I doubt that in her entire experience Winston has encountered an office in as hopeless a mess as mine. A walk through any editorial office will show that newspaper people are incorrigible pack rats. Few desktops can be seen for piles of newspapers, notes, letters, books, magazines and half-eaten cheese sandwiches.

I have an idea that I get more mail than most corporate executives, and I don’t have a corps of secretaries to open, sort and dispose of all but those that need my attention. All my mail needs my attention.

I bring it home from The Times in a canvas sack and consign it to my system. I read every letter. Those that require an immediate answer I put in one pile. Those that might serve as ideas for columns I put in various others, according to their subject. For example, I may have a pile for cats, a pile for UFOs and a pile for organizing. These files are placed on the floor, around my chair. Letters that must be answered at once I often leave on top of my desk, so they will catch my eye.

Letters that require my personal presence here or there, on a certain date, I lay on my desk, to answer; when I answer them I mark my wall calendar, then file the letters in a drawer file under the pertinent date.

As you can imagine, there is room for error in this system. After sorting the mail I gather up the separate piles (of various subjects) and drop them in cardboard cartons. I usually have two cartons full to the top of this material. Almost every day I go through the entire lot. I have letters in those boxes that are several years old. Sometimes, when I decide to use one, I have to telephone its author to make sure that he or she is still alive. I once answered a letter that was 5 years old.

There is a great danger that some of the letters I leave on top of my desk for immediate answer will be lost. I don’t know what happens to them. Perhaps they are misfiled. Perhaps they are swept into my wastebasket. But somehow they vanish.

Sometimes a letter that is vital to a certain subject will be missing from that pile. I spend hours every week looking for misplaced letters. I have gone down to the garage and emptied a trash barrel in search of a missing letter.

Letters left on top of my desk for immediate answer are the most likely to vanish. Just the other day I received a letter from Spring Valley asking me to talk at some educational affair. I wrote “Spring Valley” in on my wall calendar for the tentative date (March 16) and set the letter aside to answer. The letter has vanished and I don’t know when and where I am to be. If you in Spring Valley read this, please write again.

I have also marked the date March 17 for Bakersfield. But I have no letter in my file. I don’t know what group I am to talk to, or when or where. (It might be the University Women.) Again, I need help.

I have thought of going to Occidental College, which is nearby, and employing a young woman student to assist me a few hours a week. But my wife has reminded me that I may not specify the sex of a prospective employee. I know it’s sexist, but somehow I prefer a female. At least we wouldn’t have to talk about football.

Who I have in mind, I suppose, is someone like Sweet Alice--

Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile

And trembled with fear at your frown

After all, curmudgeons have their priorities too.