Friday Report

[adair]

I have not really uncluttered much this week. I continued the slow job of entering records for my double-shelved fannish paperbacks. I worked on the back of the third shelf today; Alien Nation, some L.M. Montgomery, Babylon 5, a few Anne McCaffrey books I decided to keep, a stack of selected westerns recommended by my father and not yet read.

Because someone is coming tomorrow to repair our stove I worked on clearing the kitchen table and the corner with various computer stuff. I got all the new flash drives together, ran the laptop backup last done in November, sorted through three containers stuck with magnets on the kitchen filing cabinet and threw out a lot of outdated bits and pieces of information. I also tossed four sample tea bags from Republic of Tea that I am never going to use, but had been hanging out on the kitchen table for about a year.

It is astonishing, or perhaps disturbing, that real sorting takes place when someone is going to come to the house. I got that kitchen work done in less than an hour, while playing most of the Waterboys Yeats cd on my laptop.

Comments

[hooloovoo_42]

There's a possibility my boss may visit my house in a couple of weeks (he's coming to deliver some paving slabs for my allotment), so I need to do some emergency uncluttering. That should be interesting.

[tanaqui]

Good luck with the emergency uncluttering!

[adair]

Yes, good luck with emergency uncluttering. Sometimes that kind of incentive results in quicker decisions.

[tanaqui]

For "not really uncluttered much", you seem to have got a lot done with the kitchen table/corner! Sounds like a really productive hour -- well done!

In terms of motivation to do that kind of tidying/sorting, I've found it useful to use a timer for short periods -- usually just 10 minutes. It encourages me to be much more focused and to try and get as much done as possible, while knowing I'm not going to hit decision fatigue and that the end point isn't some nebulous "all finished" future time, but only ten minutes away.

Would it help -- in the absence of people regularly coming to the house! -- for you to aim to do a short, timed unclutter in a "problem area" at some point every weekend?

No new items found to unclutter here, but I did get two trash bags of stuff and a bag of garden rubbish actually out of the house on Friday!

[adair]

Yeah, those are good suggestions, and work for small areas like the tables where things pile up. My desk, now ... I am trying to keep the kitchen table clear. The next table to work on is in the two-computer area. It has piles of books, a basket of medical paperwork collected over the last year, another basket with oddments that I have carried in the purse sometimes, and BTP and 3Rs papers that need to be either filed or tossed.

Moving stuff out is an achievement! Onward.