Starting in the corners
My front room is a mess. It has been a mess since some time before Thanksgiving. I don’t like it when my living spaces are a mess, and I’ve been sorely tempted to clean it up by shoving stuff elsewhere. I don’t because that is what I’ve been doing ever since school started and at this point “elsewhere” is full. Last week I finally had space in my brain to try to figure out how to clean up the front room. In order to do it, I had to start in my office. This makes sense when you realized that “elsewhere” is usually in the middle of my office. This continues until my office is impassible. Which it was.
So I began to clean my office. Unfortunately many of the things in the middle of my office had been stuffed there because they simply did not have other places to belong. All the stowing spaces in my office and storage room are full. Half of what they are filled with is the wrong stuff. Things I use regularly reside in piles and under other things while things I no longer need sit neatly on easily accessible shelves. Reorganization is in order. So yesterday I began. I am going through my office shelf by shelf and evaluating everything. I’m putting things where they will be readily useful. This is not going to be a quick process. I expect it to take weeks.
Yesterday I finally accepted that my office needs to be an office instead of also doubling as a guest room. I set up a permanent shrink wrapping and paper cutting desk. Now there is not room for me to put an inflatable bed in here for guests. I am sad, because I like being a good hostess and giving guests their own space, but this makes much more sense on a daily basis.
Today I began going through the four drawer file cabinet. All the drawers are stuffed full and I intend to look at almost every paper in there. I already have two garbage bags full of shredded out-dated documents. The world will not suffer for me shredding old utility bills. I keep the tax related stuff back 7 years, but I’ve saved so much garbage paper. It wasn’t garbage when I stowed it carefully away, but it is now. Soon I’ll be able to re-think the organization in those cabinet drawers. I’m hoping to be able to stow writing notes in the newly created spaces.
Onward I will head to the cubby holes and shelves. Then into the storage room. I will haul garbage bags out. I will have a stack of things to give away or donate. In the end I will have space and the supplies I need ready to be used. It is going to be good to have an office that I am able to vacuum.