Operation Office Overhaul: Tiny steps
On Saturday night it hit me that I let two weeks of school vacation go by without making a dent on the mess in my office. It would have been the perfect time to get everything cleaned out. On the other hand, I spent a lot of QT with my son doing things like polymer clay sculpture, visiting friends, and catching up on errands. It wasn’t like I was a couch potato for two weeks.
Anyway, this realization prodded me to do a little something toward Operation Office Overhaul this weekend. I didn’t take any photos, but on Sunday afternoon I:
- Cleaned up a pile of papers, books, and CDs in my doorway, and vacuumed the walkway into my office. Now when I enter my den, at least I see space.
- Got rid of a laundry basket full of beans (don’t ask) sitting underneath my desk.
- Emptied out the wastebaskets
This hour or so of straightening up made a difference. When I walk into my office, I actually see a bit of open space and it energizes me. Sorry, but I’m the type of person who relaxes around open space — clutter makes me feel anxious and stressed, and I do my best work when there’s not a lot of visual distraction. (Or aural. I can’t write with music playing, unless it’s Handel or Bach.)
My goal this week is to work on my office an hour a day, between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. I want to clear out the shelves in my office by getting rid of books I don’t use and recycling magazines I won’t ever read. I also want to clip and scan the two years’ worth of clips I have piled up around the office.
How will you start sorting your office this week? Add your comments below. [db]
(ETA: Lest anyone think I was joking about the laundry basked filled with beans, I present photographic evidence below.)
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Jan 6, 2009 Organization
I need open space, too. My overhauls only seem to happen when I have huge chunks of time, so I did use a portion of the last two weeks to get rid of old files and make room for 2009 stuff.
The “one hour a day” strategy never really worked for me. I’d be interested to see how it goes for you. (FWIW, I’m a big fan of Julie Morgenstern’s organizing books).
Diana, I laughed so hard at “Got rid of a laundry basket full of beans (don’t ask) sitting underneath my desk” that I nearly shot coffee through my nose!
Congrats on the progress you made. I have done precisely zilch thus far in regards to physically attacking this office, but plan to get at least one hour in this afternoon clearing the desk. (On the other hand, my list of Tolerations is now 78 items long, minus the 12 items I’ve knocked out over the past few days.)
A question about clips: Do you keep both scanned copies and the original? I have scads of clips, all from the small newspaper where I’ve been writing for the past six years. I really need to go through them and sort the good stuff (feature articles) from the dribble (Mini articles on community events), and then scan the pertinent items. Back when I first started this gig, I was so excited to see my work in print that I saved *everything*! Now I’m drowning. Scanning is going to be tricky, because this newspaper publishes in tabloid format, and my scanner bed isn’t big enough for me to scan a whole page. I’ll have to do some creative scanning in order to fit the article on the bed, especially those that are broken from from the front page and continued later in the issue.
I made a significant dent in my office overhaul this weekend by finding an afforable computer armoire that I repurposed into a storage armoire. I also cleaned off much of the desktop (still some to go) and completely restructured the small closet in my office. So, while there has been obvious progress made, there are now piles of orphan boxes and misc. junk waiting to find a home. I’d better get on it soon or they might become permanent fixtures! I’ve also drawn out diagrams of what I need to do to have “a place for everything & everything in its place” which requires a few more small storage purchases. Guess I’d better put that on my to-do list today!
Congrats on the progress. I overhauled my husband’s and my joint office due to his new position now allowing him to work from home two days a week. I just pictured us both trying to use the dining room table (and he has to talk to people on the phone a lot) and knew it wouldn’t work.
One thing I ended up doing that worked for me was more organize than clean. Our office was chaotic due to an overload of CDs, disks, and other storage media (my husband works in computer field and is a pack rat). Stuff was stacked haphazardly on shelves, desks, etc. We had bags and bags of stuff to recycle but never made it to the curb. So I hauled out the paper, pulled stuff off shelves and stacked everything neatly. We still need to go through books and cds to see if we need them. But I only have to do it shelf by shelf as I have time. And I don’t bring anything else into the office unless I either have space for it or make space by removing other items.
I still have too much stuff but at least now, it doesn’t interfere with work.