Since I am such an advocate of organization and know first hand what a positive effect it can have on you, your home and your life, I hate to admit there might be a downside to being organized.
In an effort to free up my time, which is so precious to me, I made arrangements recently for my new health insurance carrier to automatically withdraw my monthly premium from my checking account. I thought this would be the most efficient way to make sure that my payments were received on time with minimal effort on my part. Great idea, right? Wrong.
Unbeknownst to me, my efficiency backfired. As a result of what I thought was the best option, I was basically giving full rein to my insurance company to tap into my checking account and take what they wanted. And, they did.
Not only did they deduct one month's premium from my account, they removed two! This was done without my knowledge and without my consent.
Of course, when it came time for them to reimburse me for the extra month (as soon as I discovered what they had done and confronted them about it), that was another story. Suddenly, they were unable to deposit a refund back into my checking account electronically. (I did not know it was a one way street.) They advised that they will be sending a check in the mail to me in the next few days. That is not the resolution I was looking for and, needless to say, I was extremely upset that this occurred to begin with. What gives them the right to do what they did?
The end result is that I have now elected cancel the "automatic withdraw" option which would have saved me time and effort and I will now have to send the payments to the insurance company manually on a monthly basis. (All because of their incompetency.) I will now be setting up electronic payments with my bank instead since they are the entity I can trust to do the job right.
Lesson learned - as much as we attempt to be organized and efficient, it does not always turn out that way. Sometimes, without the cooperation of other entities, the best laid plans do not pan out.
This will not stop me, however, in my quest to get and stay organized in not only my life, but those of my family, friends and clients. Why? Because it's the right thing to do!
Have you had any experiences where your attempts to be organized have backfired? I would love to hear from you.
In the meantime, I am taking off for five days to enjoy the Jersey shore and wishing you an organized week.
