When I bought Stephen King’s On Writing, my first reaction was to jump for joy when I looked at the cover photo. His office has stacks of stuff, too. Maybe just on the shelf behind his desk, and maybe not quite as much stuff as I have, but his is not a spiffy, everything in its place kind of room. Apparently he works in comfortable, mostly controlled chaos.
I, on the other hand, work in complete, overwhelming chaos. Part of that isn’t my fault. Well, okay, so it is my fault. Sort of.
Basically what happened is this…I bought a house owning far more stuff than it could ever hold. But, before I had a chance to do much of anything about it, within months of moving in I was in a serious car accident, and the next three years were spent recovering from that. During that time I was also diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which contributed greatly to the constant fatigue I’d been struggling with.
So here I am, a little over four and a half years later. Almost back to normal, though still fighting too much fatigue, and I’m ready to start weeding out a lot of stuff because….I hate clutter!
In one corner I have one of those tall plastic gift wrap containers…because whoever built this house must have owned about one and a half outfits and a winter coat. The closets are some of the tiniest I’ve seen, and other storage (think Christmas decorations and seldom used, but still needed items) is pretty much non-existent. That means my office is the catch-all room for things I don’t know what to do with….and the paperwork (which I’ve always been bad about)…God help me, I’d like to just burn every piece…without so much as peeking at it.
The problem is, it’s kind of overwhelming. For one thing, my kids have too much stuff, too…and are far more resistant to getting rid of it than I am. Then there’s the fact that I still don’t feel as good as I did before the accident (but am continuing to improve), so that doesn’t help. Therefore I’ve decided to tackle it a little at a time.
And for motivation, I’m going to turn to one person I’ve admired for a long time. Since before I bought this house. Because of ‘The Flylady,’ I had minimal clutter when I lived in town…and had adequate storage (and a basement). Okay, so maybe it wasn’t minimal. But it seemed like a lot less than it does here.
Not only does she have a fantastic attitude and great ideas, she has a philosophy that I’m totally on board with. You can’t organize clutter. Nope. You must get rid of it. And I’m finally there again. Just listening to one of her videos for a few minutes is enough to send me on a decluttering mission.
I’ve also found another woman who impresses me. Dana White over at A Slob Comes Clean. She has some pretty cool ideas, too. I’ll be organizing and culling a bunch of stuff from my utensil drawer thanks to her.
Thank goodness I don’t have anything remotely close to that bad to deal with, but videos like this are also very motivating. And I need motivation to deal with the reams of paperwork I’ve done my best to ignore.
Anyway, between these two ladies, and the motivation they inspire, I hope to reclaim my office…and live with the closet and minimal storage space I have. That means trashing and donating a lot of stuff. God knows I don’t want to take a chance on being featured on Hoarders someday!
Wish me luck? Once I start in on the paperwork mountain, I’m not sure I’ll ever find my way out!
Good luck, Kristy! I remember reading some organization article years ago that said to remove 5 things from your house each week, or some number like that. I don’t do it every week, but I “lean” in that direction. The bigger problem is all the stuff my family likes to hold on to. 🙂
Oh I know what you mean! My kids never want to get rid of anything! LOL…when they were still in grade school…and still had a toy box, I would periodically go through and throw out broken toys and stuff that had gotten in there that shouldn’t be in there. One of those times, my son…my AUTISTIC son…got ticked and said, “You know this is child abuse, don’t you?” My chin almost hit the floor.
My response. “Okay. Call and turn me in. I’ll help you pack your bags and you can go live at a house where they don’t throw away broken toys.” After that followed a half hour lecture on what child abuse actually was. LOL…he never said anything like that again. 🙂