Curious about whether being obsessed with efficiency (e.g. sorting the grocery list, crossing the street diagonally, doing your morning routine in a specific order) is the same as being anal retentive or if it’s a separate issue?? I thought anal-retentive was more about attention to detail than about efficiency. Thoughts?

Also, I appreciate Shane’s post from April 15 ‘09. Important to remember that these habits are really only something to be concerned about if they negatively interfere with your life. Otherwise, they’re just a great way to stay organized!

2. Everything, and I mean absolutely EVERYTHING, is done in routine. I have a morning routine, a before bed routine, I take the same roads, routes, etc. They’ve proven efficient for me before, thus I continue to use them. I’m also terrified of change, so I keep it in routine.

3. Grammar. My oh my, where to begin here.. To leave it short and sweet: I am beyond meticulous with my grammar.

4. I sort my money from largest bill to smallest, and I make sure all the president’s heads are facing in the same order.

5. It bothers me if something is out of its place.. leading to.. everything has its place! I’m an organizational freak, to say the least

6. All the songs I download to my computer must be done in this exact way: Augustana – Boston. Nothing like augustana – boston (full song here!), or boston- augustana. The artist, then the song. Everything is capitalized, one space, then hyphen, then one space, and no excess words.

7. I’ve been told my phone book is very neat and organized, although I never thought anything of it before.

8. I find grammatical mistakes in books that have already been published. Such as The Twilight Saga. I’ve found at least 5 mistakes.

9. When I see a clock, I have to last look at it before the colon re-appears in between the numbers. such as 3:24. I have to look away at 3 24

That’s all I’ll state for now.. it’s pretty much all I can think of.

~ I make lists entitled: THINGS I NEED TO MAKE LISTS FOR, I kid you not.

~ My life is one system of organization on top of another.

But I think the epitome of anal-retentiveness for me is the fact that I’m going through all of these comments, copying the ones that apply to me, coming up with my own, and consolidating them into my own list entitled: THINGS THAT MAKE ME ANAL-RETENTIVE.

Lids to all shampoos, conditioners, and soaps must be closed (even the ones belonging to other family members).

I have aquired a new one recently. I have Onstar with my new GM vehicle. One of its “conveniences” is a report containing the status of my veihcle to me via e-mail (oil life etc.). The status report also displays the individual tire pressure for each wheel so when I have a low tire there is a yellow symbol next to the low tire in the graphic. Great! Now I have to check my tire pressure frequently to make sure I don’t get a bad report.

I reset the trip odometer at each fillup and verify I am getting roughly the same gas mileage out of my vehicle (that I have had for more than 10 years).

The way the toilet paper (and paper towel roll) is hung on the holder! Making sure it comes off the top for ease of use.

Making sure everything is level such as pictures on the wall. It drives me crazy when something is hung permanently unlevel.

I only comb my hair in the bathroom only to avoid getting hair on the carpet and therefore wrapped around the brush on the vacuum, and THEN clean up any strands of hair that fell out with a dustbuster so they don’t stick to my wet feet after a shower (although there are terrycloth slippers for that), or to my socks in passing…I don’t do hair that is no longer attached to a head!!!!

Toilet paper must roll from over the top

I don’t arrange my bills, but I do scramble try to get rid of the bills In the worst shape 1st when paying for things…..I will now organize them that way, thank you for making me a better anal-retentive person

I always provide a nickname for unofficial online stuff out of fear that someone I know will see what I’ve posted

I hate when people put apostrophes in the wrong place…I also correct grammatical mistakes, I do it under my breath if said person is speaking pubically, I don’t like when people say ‘good’ when they should say ‘well’….I’m not grammatically perfect though

The volume level on my TV has to be rounded to the nearest 5; not 23, but 25

the shirts In my closet are color coordinated

when I eat crackers and potato chips I put the whole chip In my mouth at once, I do not bite them to avoid crumbs, I don’t do crumbs!!!!!

Definitely #1 and I always thought I inherited that ‘habit’ from my mother.

I keep EVERYTHING in my purse; band-aids, alcohol wipes, every store member discount card, a stack of business cards, lotion, chapstick, lip gloss, 2 planners(1 to write my daily activities before & after they happen and 1 to keep track of my daily spending), a checkbook, a notebook, 4 pens, 2 pencils, a post-it pad (just incase the notebook isn’t working, Idk), gas-x, lactaid pills, a hair clip, a comb, all my receipts from the last 3 months, an umbrella, coupons, gum, sanitary napkins, a nail clipper, deodorant(for those days when I oversleep & forget because I’m rushing, there’s one at my desk at work too), Tylenol, eye drops, neosporin, Tums, at least 2 free standing lists (there are so many more IN the notebook), my camera (incase there’s a Kodak moment) and all my photos on 2 flash drives…sigh, that was a lot. Needless to say my mother constantly warns me that I’m hurting my shoulder with my heavy purse.

PS I love 2 abbreviate, im part of the text message generation, i tried my best 2 spare u all tho, @ least b4 now, didn’t want to bother any1 lol That alone might save me from this whole anal-retentative stereotype thingy