Sppppeaaakkkiiinnnng of OCDishness...

Today my T gave me his DBT book and told me to go through his sticky notes and pick out what exercizes I was willing to try (after bursting out laughing at the idea of imaging my diaphram breathing as looking like a balloon...). I have to pick at least 5.

So he gave it to me. He joked and said that he was sure I'd bring it back with the sticky notes all reorganized.

I'm not sure if that was meant to deter me from doing it, or to encourage me to do it, or just a simple observation on my desire to organize.

I've taken it as a challenge. And have just spent 3 hours organizing it. I just need to get my sticky notes from work.

1st: I went through each of his stickies based on colour (wanted to see if he had any pattern to them). So one page was "Green" another "pink" and "yellow". I'd write down the page number and the heading. (This was done in Green Ink)
Conclusion: I think he did Pink ones as starting things, Green as the middle things he's been trying with me, and Yellow are more complicated things that he hasn't tried with me.

2nd Step: Thought about my own categories of the stuff he had and broke them into "Things to Talk About in Session" "Lists of things" "Exercises to do in Sessions" "Worksheets". Again, I went through each colour first and then next to the heading I'd put either (e) (l) (t) or (ws). (This was done in Red Ink)
Result: I added a few new stickies of things that I think he would find useful to have stickied. Including two Exercizes that I'm willing to try that he didn't have stickied.

3rd Step: I'd noticed that some of the stickies were on the back of the page, which would require me to pay attention when labelling the sticky. I went through and found those pages and put a * next to the page number. (This was done in Blue Ink)

4th Step: I got out new pieces of paper and Labelled them "Exercize" "Talk" "Lists" and "Worksheets". I then organized them like that, making sure I wrote down the pages in order. (This was done in Black Ink). Also relabelled the *s in blue for the back of the page stickies.

5th Step: Got a new piece of paper and wrote down the Exercizes I'm willing to try. (Putting a (c) next to the ones that I thought were challenging, and a (x) next to the ones that I had added on my own. (This was done in Red Ink).

6th Step: I went through each page of the book to see if there was anything else that I thought should also have a sticky
Conclusion: No thanks, they're not in the same topic area that he's working on with me.

7th Step: Count all the stickies and all the pages I wrote down to make sure I didn't miss any.
Conclusion: Good job me, there's 33 stickies (including new ones to be added) in each list.

Plan for tomorrow when I have my stickies:
1) Stickies near the Top of the book: Talking Subjects (as they'd likely be done first)
2) Next ones: Lists (as they get talked about too)
3) Exercizes (as we do those together)
4) At the bottom: Worksheets as those I will eventually get stuck with on my own.
5) Challenges I'm willing to do will go along the top of the book, not down the side like the others.
6) Ensure that all 33 stickies will have space to go down the page and fit.

Each of those will be a different colour.

Final step: bring in the original pages with his colour-coding in case he wants to put it back the way he had it.

I've spent I think 3 hours doing that tonight? (also been chatting online and stuff, but still...)