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Tuesday, October 17, 2017

My Office Needs an Intervention

When I moved into my house in 2013, things were extremely hectic. I'd moved out of my house in Minnesota and closed on it, then drove down to Georgia where I needed to unpack everything loaded in my car--there was a lot--and get the financial side arranged before I closed on my house in Georgia a week later. Thankfully, my parents did a lot of the unpacking for me, and while I didn't love some of places they put things, I was grateful to not have everything in boxes.

One room, though, that never quite got put away was my office. Oh, everything was out its box, but aside from my research books and computer equipment, it was mostly a free-for-all in that room. And since it was a mess anyway and I needed to put things away at some nebulous future date, it became a dumping ground--Mail that I didn't open (AKA Junk Mail), but didn't have time to shred or recycle, writing notes, bank statements, receipts--well, you get the idea. Periodically, I'd try to tackle it, but storage is in short supply in my house and I didn't have anything to use to organize this stuff.

Finally, I found storage for all the little things that accumulate, took it to my office, and couldn't find those little things. It was frustrating and drove me crazy! Where did all that stuff disappear to? I tried to resign myself to living with a room that looked like that, but I couldn't do it. I avoided the office at all costs.

And then we were having trouble with our cable and I called someone to get it fixed. And boom! a tech was scheduled for the next day. There was a possibility it might need to do work in the office because that's where the modem is.

My dad and I dragged everything on the floor out of the office and got the major stuff on the table near the modem and on the desk out of there too. It all was deposited in a different room.

This got me thinking. Why not take everything out of the office except the computer equipment and the books and go with the plan that nothing goes back into the office until I've looked at and decided there was a compelling reason to keep it. I'm hoping this plan works because I can't take the clutter, but I'm skeptical simply because nothing I've tried previously has worked. Wish me luck.