The cost of being disorganized.
Last week, I made a small mistake at my ceramics studio that cost me $175 in fines. It was a careless mistake; I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and contaminated the clear glaze with the white glaze, ruining an entire five-gallon bucket.
Such a small, careless mistake. Which I was invoiced for immediately, like 5 minutes after I did it and alerted the studio manager. I left the studio, biked home, and cried. I hate messing up. I hate being punished for it. I hate losing money.
But in reality, I’m always losing money for my carelessness. I've been too lazy to prepare for screen printing sessions and ended up wasting time printing posters for my dog’s birthday party rather than having an inventory of posters I could sell. I’ve let my digital file structure become disorganized to the point where I can’t remember what I worked on yesterday and where I put it. I’ve missed deadlines for grants and opportunities that could change the trajectory of my career as a professional artist. I’ve overworked myself to a point where my wrist was in so much pain that I had to turn down the highest paying freelance contract I’d ever been offered.
I’m figuring it out, so I’m messy, unorganized, and careless sometimes.
But I wasn’t explicitly punished for my carelessness in those instances. I didn’t have to pay out of pocket for my mistakes. So they don’t feel like mistakes. And maybe I’ll keep making them, over and over and over again. And the cost of my carelessness will far exceed $175. Not out of my pocket, but also not in my pocket.
Sitting at the desk day after day with bad posture, I likely won’t feel any short-term consequences. But one day, I’ll wake up with a bad back, my bad posture that extends far beyond work hours, and thousands of dollars of chiropractor fees.
Small, minute-to-minute decisions and habits make up my life and my career. I’d like to work to make them all count toward me, not against me.