COMMON SAINTS: My Messy Life

I’m not a doctor, but I’ve played one on TV.  

I’ve also played a dad, an uncle, a repairman, an Internet business owner, a plumber, a mid-level manager and even a chubby cop.  As an actor and comic, I’ve had the opportunity to use my God-given talents in acting and comedy in ways I once only dreamed about.  

Because I’m one of those artistic types, I tend to be quite unorganized.  

For this reason I’m very grateful that the 3M Corporation invented “Post-It” ® notes.  Honestly, I believe these little time savers were created just for me!
I use them all the time!  

Those little sticky notes are great for jotting down important tasks I need to accomplish… 

Buy more milk.

Check the oil in the car.

Make reservations for our anniversary.

Rinse. Repeat.

The only problem is – I tend to procrastinate.  Which means, suddenly I had tons of little sticky notes stuck to my desk, computer, bookcase and every other flat surface in my office.  

Things were getting out of hand. I decided to gather all the sticky notes and transfer the information in list form onto a single Word document. Then I could print that out and tackle each item on my “to-do” list in order of importance.  

I put off accomplishing the tasks, of course, and it wasn’t long before I had piles of 8 ½ x 11 Word documents piling up all over my desk.  What a mess!

So, I decided to compile those Word docs into little booklets, 3-hole punching them and binding them together with brads. Then I took the booklets and lined them up on my bookshelves.  This saved a lot of space and really made me appear organized.  

Then, yesterday, I noticed that I never bothered to arrange the booklets in any particular order. They really needed to be organized.

So – I pulled out a Post-It, and wrote myself a little note…

Dan McGowan is a comic and actor living in Denver and working anywhere people will pay him. Dan, who was a contestant on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” has appeared in several television commercial and most recently was a finalist in the search for the new Maytag repairman.  Dan performs clean comedy and musical parodies in churches and corporations nationwide and is a published author, songwriter and music composer.