One Monkey Short of a Great Book

Let's face it: staying organized sucks. Like any Type-A wannabe, I've been trying to stay on top of the really important stuff in my life, well, all my life ... and I've failed at it so miserably that I've been officially reclassified "Type Z."

But the other day I had an epiphany that promises to change the lives forever of anyone who is anywhere on the list from Type B on down.

I got to thinking - while avoiding doing things I should have been doing, of course - about the random nature of life, and why shouldn't our approach to organization be random as well?

(You might not want to mention this to computer programmers or librarians, unless their insurance plans include mental health care.)

Examples of successful random approaches abound:

• Automatic pool cleaners, which creep randomly around the surface and take mere hours to do their thing (and a lot less time if you don't have a pool)
• Roomba vacuum cleaners, which can clear a room faster than Ann Coulter

(As intimidating as it is, my to-do list certainly isn't as big as the average room or backyard pool - or Ann Coulter, for that matter.)

OUR FOUNDER

But the mother of all random approaches is the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which says that given an infinite amount of time, an infinite number of monkeys can write all the Great Books. Inspired by this insanely ambitious example of randomly getting it done, I am calling my epiphany the Monkey Time Management System. (I even came up with a slogan: "Time is Monkey.")

The underlying principle of my system is this: You'll get everything done that you have to get done - and everything else - if you have enough time.

My system has only one rule: Do something.

The following table shows examples of acceptable and unacceptable definitions of "something":

Acceptable	Unacceptable
Watching "Happy Days" reruns	Being dead
Reorganizing sock drawer	Being in a coma
Forwarding lame email jokes	Being in an iron lung
Staring into space
Responding to Mr. Phwutu's email pleas for money with your own pleas for money
Thinking about the Infinite Monkey Theorem, pool cleaners, Roombas and Ann Coulter
Discussing "Lost" TV-show Easter eggs with nerdy friend
Stalking Ann Coulter
Violating restraining order

As you can see, as long as you're alive and breathing on your own, it's nearly impossible to come up with an unacceptable activity in the Monkey System.

Multitasking is encouraged. You might, for example, forward lame email jokes while watching "Happy Days" reruns ... or discuss "Lost" Easter eggs with your nerdy friend while stalking Ann Coulter and violating the restraining order. (We call that a "Monkey Trifecta.")

The genius of my system is that it completely avoids pesky list-making, planning, prioritizing - and stressing about it. Just do what you want, and when you absolutely run out of things you want to do, do something you should do.

If you have the time.