Dear Jo,

Thanks so much for taking the time to post such a detailed account from your personal experience. It is eye-opening and provides much insight

You really gave me a chuckle with - "standing in the middle of the room with glazed eyes, looking around and not knowing where to start". That would be me, LOL

Thing is, I am GREAT at organizing, and am laughed at by friends and colleagues for how organized I am.

I'd really like to understand what it is about my desk/work room/paperwork that I have a "fear" of

I will take to heart your very intelligent approach to your massive organization project, and will apply to my task

I like your unwavering motivation to keep at it, one box at a time
and look forward to the day when whatever lands on my desk has to be gone by the end of the day. I would actually settle for 'has to be gone by the end of the week'

Thanks ever so much, Jo
Sarit

: Hi Sarit,

: I'd like to tell you a story. You'll
: laugh, but even though it's a far
: larger scale than what you have,
: it may speak to your situation.
: It's long, too -- sorry about
: that.

: My husband and I have two houses. Why
: we have two houses is another long
: story in itself, but it works for
: us. We tend to spend more time in
: mine than in his. Why?
: Well........that's the story.

: He was married before. When his
: ex-wife left (many, many years ago
: now), she took little more than
: her clothes and left 25 years of
: assorted stuff behind.

: He has two adult children. They have
: moved around quite a bit. Each
: time they moved, particularly in
: the years when they were just out
: of college, they brought stuff
: home to "store". Then on
: subsequent moves, they'd come
: back, rummage through the stored
: stuff, take what they wanted, add
: new stuff, and leave the area in
: slightly worse disarray than it
: was when they found it.

: He retired several years ago. In his
: work, he had dominion over an
: electronics laboratory, a
: storeroom, and an office. A good
: quarter of the pieces and parts,
: which were his to dispose of, came
: home when he retired. They landed
: in boxes, all over the lower level
: of the house, and there they sat.

: Three years ago, his mother died. We
: had to clear out her apartment.
: She was a lovely woman and a
: wonderful organizer. The amount of
: stuff she fit into a small
: apartment was amazing. My husband
: was too emotional to deal with
: sorting it all out, so we packed
: it all up, furniture, boxes and
: all, and brought it home. The
: kids' rooms got crammed with the
: overflow. The mattress sat on its
: side in the hallway. More boxes
: piled up in the lower level. The
: living room was full of excess
: furniture. The master bedroom had
: three dressers.

: The result wasn't quite like one of
: those hoarder shows, but it was
: still overwhelming and depressing.
: Something had to be done.

: We picked the easiest space to
: reclaim. The living room had a
: bunch of furniture in it, but not
: too much clutter. We broke the
: task down (decide which pieces of
: furniture can go out of the living
: room, call the charitable
: organization with the truck and
: schedule a pickup, move the
: furniture to the garage so nobody
: has to see the inside of the house
: -- voila, reclaimed living room).

: Ahh, but there was a desk in the
: living room. It had become a
: dumping ground for papers,
: computer parts, books, file
: folders, etc. First it got sorted.
: We got empty boxes and set them by
: the desk. Similar things got
: grouped together. That's how we
: separated school stuff from work
: stuff from family stuff from
: trash. The trash, of course, went
: out immediately. Then each day,
: the assignment became to clear one
: box. We kept the shredder handy
: for sensitive documents and the
: recycle bin for other stuff.

: Each piece we handled, we made a fast
: decision. Is this really necessary
: to keep (do we have room for it?
: could it be photographed or
: scanned and the original tossed?)?
: We developed a whole new concept
: of what was important. We have one
: filing cabinet, and papers that
: won't fit have to go. If we think
: something is really important, we
: move something of lesser
: importance out of the filing
: cabinet to make room.

: Then we cleaned the top of the desk
: and made a rule that anything that
: landed there had to be gone by the
: end of the day (that was a
: compromise -- I wanted to say that
: nothing could land there at all!
: ).

: We're doing the same thing with the
: rest of the stuff. It's slow
: going, but we don't look at the
: big picture. One box at a time.
: One day at a time. We are
: committed to progress, and not a
: day goes by that we don't do
: something. We've unloaded tons of
: electronic parts at a nearby
: community college. We've found a
: recycler for techno-trash. We're
: working with three different
: charities to send stuff to places
: where it will get used rather than
: sit around.

: There are challenges, to be sure. The
: emotional issues that come up in
: all of this are strong. It's hard
: work, and we've had to make a
: decision that this is top priority
: in our life and that other
: activities are going to be let go
: for now. We have disagreements
: about what stays and what goes.
: But we're getting there.

: The hard part was getting started.
: But once we decided to just do
: something, anything, the job took
: on a life of its own. It's
: impossible to work out a master
: plan for all of it. We just
: identified one space, picked up
: the first thing, and made a
: decision. Having sorting boxes
: helped us, but if your task is
: small enough, you might be able to
: skip the initial sorting.

: The idea is to not get bogged down.
: We can't read every paper, stop to
: reminisce over every photo,
: agonize over every object. I often
: sound like a broken record -- my
: constant lines are "Are you
: ever going to use this
: again?" "Do we really
: need this?" "Couldn't we
: just take a picture and let this
: go?". My job is to not let my
: husband get to the point where
: he's standing in the middle of the
: room with glazed eyes, looking
: around and not knowing where to
: start.

: The point of this long story is not
: to make light of your issue.
: Whether it's a 5-bedroom house or
: a desktop, the feelings and the
: challenges are the same. But I can
: tell you, staying stuck is way
: worse than picking up that first
: piece of paper and doing
: something.

: Jo