I read this this morning: ". . .Your junk drawer brought under control today can be your life brought under control tomorrow. When it's done, ah, you will feel so proud, so utterly organized, so very much in charge."

This is why I have been a voracious reader of time management and organization books. This is why I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter called "David Allen's Productivity Principles" and one called "Get Organized Now." I even get a snail-mail newsletter called The Organized Executive.

I keep the pencils in my pencil basket sharpened and point down. I move today's tickler file to the back of the drawer at the end of each day. I sort my laundry into five categories and then rotate--always clockwise--through the categories for the next load. I have multiple to-do-list tracking systems, including one for the home front that automatically prompts me to do repeating chores--water the plants, plan the menus, buy the groceries.

Only a game
In my heart, I have always known that this was a game I play with myself, that creating the illusion of control helps me to focus and to recognize the progress I'm making. It defines me--to myself--as capable; it provides a framework around which all of the out-of-control can swirl.

I'm not obsessive about any of this--I don't think. And I'm pretty easy-going about what other people do, both at work and at home. I've learned what things to let go of in favor of my children's happiness, for example: I don't expect them to organize their closets like mine or even to put the dishes away in exactly the right spots. But there's no denying my own nature.

Last fall, I met with the ultimate challenge to my illusions of control. I was diagnosed with a fairly rare medical condition--a "spontaneous" leak of cerebro-spinal fluid inside my head. For the first several months, this was just one more sub-head on my to-do list, another section in my planner. I made the medical appointments; I scheduled time for research.

But the day I realized they would actually have to open up my head in order to fix the leak, I realized just how much I was not in control. Suddenly my systems and structures were irrelevant. I went through the motions at work, trying to be thorough in parceling out assignments for the duration of my medical leave. But I couldn't escape the notion that my delegation lists and responsibility matrices--well, they didn't matter very much.

Out of control
At home, I was pretty much immobilized. A better person, I told myself, would be filling the freezer with casseroles. Instead, I got out my knitting, producing a scarf and a shawl before I went into the hospital. I dug out my lucky pig and wine-bottle cork, surprising my husband, who hadn't known I was at all superstitious. I was particularly preoccupied with the idea of general anesthesia--the ultimate out-of-control experience. Two friends, surgery veterans, recognized the fear of the unknown and walked me, in detail, through their experiences, ending with "and then you wake up."

The hospital, of course, is a system designed for individual impotence--for his or her own good. My arrival was scheduled; in the interest of infection and inventory control, they asked that I not bring personal items. There are forms to fill out, other forms to sign, and I and my fellow patients, all in hospital gowns, were parked in one place or another until the next step in the health-care assembly line. And then I woke up.

I spent five days reclining at a 30-degree angle. I couldn't control my wakefulness. I couldn't organize my things on my bed-side table, and almost as soon as I realized it was bugging me, I realized I was too tired to care. I couldn't control my schedule, especially during the first 24 hours, when I was subjugated to the schedule of the very competent nurses in the ICU. I couldn't control my bladder. (Perhaps tellingly, I couldn't think of the word "catheter" during my entire hospital stay. I called the thing variously "colander" or "carbuncle" or "calibrator.")

I didn't do all that much better at home. My friends, God bless them, were in charge of all of our food and my children's well-being. My mother took over doing our laundry--according to her own sorting rules and probably not counter-clockwise. I didn't see a to-do list for at least four weeks, and if I had, I probably would have dozed off. And you know what? It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all.

Life-long learning
I've been back at work full-time for a couple of months now. I've learned some things: They're right when they say a major surgery makes you tired for months. Making yourself and your health a priority is only easy when you're facing a major medical crisis. It takes about six weeks to get sucked back in to the old routine. And shortly after that, it takes the incision scar to confirm that the whole thing happened at all.

A couple of days ago, a friend and coworker told me about a conversation with his mentor, who is known as a lifelong learner. "What are you learning about these days?" my friend asked. "Mysteries," was his mentor's answer. The whole answer. Nothing about how to unravel them, how to file them, how to banish them.

And I guess that's the most important lesson I learned from my medical adventure. There are mysteries--like why me, why my brain leaked, why it was now, how I happened into the perfect surgeon, why I recovered as smoothly as I did. And when I touch the scar on my head, I can remind myself that my habits of structure and order are no competition for wonder and miracles.

Lois Maassen continually hopes to organize her health, home life, and marketing work for Herman Miller. She can always hope.