Psychologist Anna Heal

Walter, what you are describing sounds less like a simple quirk and more like a behavioral pattern that has crossed into compulsive territory. The key features you mention are the intense urge, the loss of time, the disruption of your writing, and the avoidance of social contact. Those are not signs of a harmless habit. They suggest that the organizing has taken on a self-reinforcing, almost addictive quality, even if the activity itself (sorting books) is not chemically addictive. But addiction in the psychological sense is often about a behavior that narrows your life, consumes your attention, and is used to regulate internal discomfort. So your question about procrastination is partly right, but I think it goes deeper than that. Procrastination usually implies you are avoiding a specific task (your memoir) because it feels aversive, boring, or anxiety-provoking. Compulsive organizing can absolutely serve that function. You sit down to write, feel a wave of uncertainty or blankness, and then the shelves call to you. The shelves offer immediate order, visible progress, and a sense of mastery. Writing a memoir, by contrast, is messy, slow, and emotionally exposing. So the shelves become a safe, predictable escape. But calling it just procrastination misses the physical urge, the hours lost, and the distress you feel. That points more toward a compulsion, which is a repetitive behavior done to reduce anxiety or tension, even though you know it is excessive.

Now, you are 58 and recently retired. That transition is huge. For decades, your identity was tied to teaching, grading, lesson planning, and a structured evening routine. That routine gave you external scaffolding for your time, your purpose, and your sense of competence. Retirement removes that scaffolding. The memoir is your attempt to build a new structure, but it is not yet solid. So the bookshelves become a transitional object (a psychological term for something that helps you manage change). They are familiar, they are yours, and they allow you to exert control in a world where your old controls are gone. The fact that you feel a deep, almost physical urge suggests that the behavior is regulating something in your nervous system, perhaps low-level anxiety, restlessness, or a sense of lost identity. The shelves are not the problem. The shelves are the symptom. The problem is that you have not yet found a new rhythm that feels as meaningful and grounding as teaching did.

Let me explore several possibilities with you, because no single label fits everyone. One option is that this is a mild obsessive-compulsive pattern that emerged under stress. It does not mean you have full OCD, but the features are there: repetitive behavior, difficulty stopping, and interference with daily life. Another option is that this is a behavioral addiction, where the organizing gives a dopamine hit of completion and control, and you keep chasing that feeling. A third option is that this is a grief response. You may be mourning the loss of your teaching career, and the bookshelves are a way to hold onto the past, since books were central to your professional life. A fourth option is that this is simply poorly channeled energy. You are used to being busy and productive, and now you have unstructured time that feels threatening. The organizing fills the void. None of these are mutually exclusive. In fact, they likely overlap.

How can you regain control without feeling like you are suppressing a part of yourself? The first step is to stop shaming yourself. You are not weak or silly. You are a person in transition who has found a coping strategy that has gotten out of hand. The goal is not to eliminate the organizing entirely, because that would feel like amputating a part of your identity. The goal is to reintegrate it into a balanced life. One practical approach is to schedule the organizing just as you would schedule a class. Give yourself a specific window (say, thirty minutes after lunch) and then stop. Use a timer. When the timer rings, you do not negotiate. You stand up, leave the room, and go to your writing desk. If the urge hits outside that window, you note it, label it as an urge, and return to what you were doing. This is not suppression. It is containment. You are not saying the urge is bad. You are saying it does not get to run your whole day.

Second, examine what you are avoiding when you go to the shelves. Is it a difficult chapter in your memoir? A fear that your writing will not be good enough? A loneliness that creeps in when the house is quiet? Write down the feeling that precedes the urge. Often, just naming the feeling reduces its power. Third, create a new evening routine that mirrors the old one but fits retirement. Instead of grading papers, you might read for thirty minutes and then write for thirty minutes. Instead of preparing lessons, you might prepare a short outline for the next day's memoir work. The structure does not have to be identical. It just has to be reliable. Fourth, talk to your wife not as a joke but as a partner. Tell her you are struggling and ask her to gently check in when you have been at the shelves too long. Social accountability helps. Fifth, consider whether you need professional support. A psychologist (not a psychiatrist) can help you unpack the underlying anxiety, grief, or identity issues. That is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of wisdom.

Finally, ask yourself this: if the shelves were completely organized and could never be touched again, what would you do with that time? That answer will tell you what the organizing is protecting you from. It might be the vulnerability of writing. It might be the silence of retirement. It might be the fear that without a title like teacher, you are not sure who you are. All of those are human and workable. You are not broken. You are in a liminal space, the threshold between one life and the next. The shelves are your way of gripping the doorframe. You can learn to let go, one small window at a time, without losing the part of you that loves order. That part is a strength. It just needs a new job.