Resuming the De-Cluttering

Memorial Day weekend last year, I made a commitment to myself to begin to eliminate clutter, unnecessary waste, and reign in on pleasure spending.

At the time, I was going through a divorce and needing to dig up important papers, separate join property, and the like.  I was driving my soon-to-be ex-husband even more insane by my lack of organization.  I can't blame him for taking it semi-personally.  In most things I am well-known for my meticulous organizational skills.  The year 2010 was most definitely the exception while I was making several major life adjustments at once.  For the first time in my life, I had more than 300 square feet all to myself (mostly).  I was putting papers down all over the house, not putting things away when I said I would, and genuinely losing things constantly.  Mix that with my mental clutter trying to keep tabs on everything, and I would have been extremely annoyed with myself, too!

I doubled up my efforts and started to go through my crap and gave away a ton of things I had been clinging to for no (good) reason for at least 10 years or more.  It's been difficult to maintain over the months that have passed since, but I have been feeling very trapped lately.  The area I setup as an office space is a disaster area with no sense to be made from its arrangement.  This also happens to be where I keep most of my crafts and important projects.

1. Cast-offs have one week to be assimilated before moving out.
Over the years I have saved a ton of stuff, you know, in case I might want to use it someday.  Most of that stuff just takes up space, collects dusts, and continues to do nothing remotely productive.  I am going to set up a shelf for cast-offs I want to keep for whatever, attach a sticky note with the date saved, and if I haven't used it within the week it will go into the yard sale/give away box.

2. File papers every day.
Seriously, I have SO MANY FREAKING PAPERS!  Why do I have so many papers everywhere?  After I go through the mail, I try to sort things through immediately.  The problem is I'm not consistent about what I do with things.  Some papers move upstairs into my craft room for filing.  Some papers move into my office for filing.  Some papers go into a "to-do" pile, whatever that means.  Some papers go in a stack to be filed in the filing cabinet.  And the rest (hopefully) make it to the recycling bin.  That's all super ridiculous.  When paper comes in, it needs to find it's home.  The only exception will be bills, which can be prepped to mail with a sticky note indicating the date it's okay to be mailed.  Sheesh, no wonder my 2010 vehicle registration card was MIA.

3. Make a running list of to-dos.  Mark off three items every day.
It's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I want to get done in a space of time.  A running list of things I want to do will keep me from forgetting a past wish list.  Accomplishing three things is enough for one day; if I have time for more, I will do more.  Three is my minimum limit though.  For example, one morning I folded and put away some of the laundry (while finishing my coffee); collected and put away my AWOL hair clips (while I brushed my teeth); and boxed up my beading supplies for purge (while cooling off from my shower, I hate jumping into clothes right after) just in the span of time it takes me to get ready for work in the morning.  I really appreciated my efforts later when I wasn't wondering where the hell all my hair clips scampered off to.

These tasks are not so time consuming that I will feel I need a whole weekend to get organized or even a whole day or evening.  It's little things I can do with small pieces of time to work towards my over-arching goals of getting organized, staying organized, and pushing for a simpler life.