Today's post brought to you by Tim's increasingly desperate attempts to avoid doing the tax

When Mum used to order me to clean my room (or, worse, do it for me) I used to strenuously object. Amongst other things, cleaning has a terrible way of preventing you finding things, I would argue. That's the point of mess: you know where everything is. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight now, I have to admit that, no - sometimes mess really doesn't make it easier to find things (unless those things are on top). 

Today's subject, however, is not mess. It is filing. It would be misleading to state that I do not have a filing system. I'm not quite sure how this erroneous impression took hold, but although I work at home and you might expect me to be lax regarding filing and the ordering of crucial documentation, you would be wrong. I don't just have one filing system, I have twenty.

The papers are first ordered by Dewey decimal system, and then four of the most common alphabetical orders (reverse, forward, upside-down and inside out) are applied. At this point, the papers are subjected to a meticulous audit from my accounting staff (I work alone, so that would be me) before being handed over to my secretarial department (me again) and selected out for artisanal purposes (I like to do origami with some sheets of paper and write horizontal villanelles or aleotoric shopping lists on them). After this, it is merely a matter of throwing them around the desk for a short period lasting a couple of months to a year until they resemble the Mandelbrot set as seen by a person on LSD, and then I enter the final stage of filing, which is roughly in the accordance to the Code of Hammurabai, although with some alterations according to the Mongolian, Latvian, and Cimmerian style guides. A quick sprinkling of dust, bread crumbs, various sugary substances, a Cheezel and a Burger Ring scattered here and there, and you have my concise, simple, and easy-to-understand filing system. You're welcome.

So anyway, filing. Bears a superficial resemblance to messiness and complete lack of order, but of course is anything but. It's possible I might switch to a new twenty systems of filing in the following financial year, although I'm not sure - my filing is in a state of continuous alteration and improvement anyway. I like to think it's more organic that way. Still wouldn't make it easier to find things, of course. But you can't have everything.