Are you detail-oriented and unorganized? How do you...

[AbbiB]

Are there any other detail-oriented (and creative, and naturally unorganized) people like me (and my son)? I want to know how you approach your writing and general life projects, and how you've functioned in high-school, college, or the workplace. Do any of you have a hard time with things like outlining, summarizing, telling stories without adding unnecessary info, or difficulty planning projects/tasks from the high-priority, over-all picture first, then planning detailed steps after that? I seem to gravitate toward the opposite - I have an idea and very quickly jump to the details of planning and completion, then working my way out to the overall picture. I've learned to outline and organize, but many times I do better with brainstorming notes, and mulling over details, then work my way out to organizing my thoughts.

 

I don't think this is bad, just different. I believe everyone has strengths and a purpose for their personality. But it also takes me a very long time to complete things because I get bogged down with details. Sometimes we need to be rounded out a bit to function better, or at least be able to work with our personality to put it to good use but still communicate well with others. How do you function? If you went to college how well did you do in writing papers?

 

I'm especially curious because my son is very much like me, and I want to help him write and organize his thoughts so he can communicate better, and be more productive with his projects. But I don't want to squash his creativity and detail-oriented mind. He is using Writing with Skill and it's working very well for him, just wondering if there are more ideas.

 

I'm wondering how people process their tasks in life -- such as how you've managed in high-school, college, or the work place, and if there have been things you did you help yourself do better? TIA!

[Danestress]

I am an organized, analytical thinker. I am good at things like identifying what facts are relevant, composing arguments and rebutting counter arguments, outlining, etc.

 

I am truly terrible at keeping track of material things. I spend a lot of time looking for keys, hunting down misfiled papers, and trying to remember where I parked,.

 

I don't think it stifles creativity to learn to express thoughts, facts, themes etc in an organized way.

 

One thing that seems to help 'rabbit hole' thinkers is to teach them to ask ""What is this all about?" then, "What is important in order to cover this matter?" and then, "Which supporting facts/arguments/ideas am I weak on?"

 

Child may decide to write a paper on whether we need more regulation of dog breeders. He might identify that he needs to cover what it is about dog breeding that is problematic, what type of regulation might address these problems, the reasons why regulation might not really address those issues, and what additional problems might be created by regulation.

 

At some point, he might recognize, "I actually don't know what regulations we already have." If he avoids doing the hard work of focusing on where his knowledge and discussion is weak, he will tend to overwrite what he wants to write about (how great dogs are, how sad puppy mills are etc) without good facts and thoughtful analysis.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Danestress