Week 1 review / Week 2 start

[rmc28]

Goals for week 1 were:

• get in touch with the gardener
• hours-of-power: Sun x2, Tue x1, Thu x2, Fri x2

Actually achieved:

• Sun 1x hour-of-power
• Freecycle emails

Yeah, it turns out I drastically ovestimated my capacity / motivation here. It doesn't help that I'm also behind on a language course, and given the choice between catching up on that, and decluttering: well I did my language study.

However, I did do that one hour-of-power on Sunday (i.e. 3x 15 minute stints with a 5 minute rest after each one), starting with the Display of Delight (i.e. the contents of a box of misc. small bits of plastic which I'd laid out across the now-clear mantlepiece). Elder Offspring had previously come and claimed pieces they wanted to keep, so in my hour I:

• added all the recognisably Lego / K'nex pieces to a box of same already living in a different room (Spouse's project!)
• put everything else in the bin
• finished sorting through the Bag of Miscellaneous Things I'd started working on during Saturday's effort, and sorted out two more similar bags

Results:

• a large pile of paper in the recycling bin
• a smaller pile of unrecylables in the bin
• a couple of very important documents filed in the filing cabinet
• some children's books and magazines added to existing teetering piles of same
• a number of notebooks, colouring pens added to existing teetering piles of same
• a stack of Interesting Clippings from my dad set aside to actually read
• a nice 2020 calendar and a pleasingly tactile stress-ball added to my bag to go live on my desk at work
• one small colouring book and pack of pencils to my bag as emergency child entertainment supply

(I made a point of sitting down after this with a nice drink and the pile of Interesting Clippings. My dad likes to save these things and bring them along when he visits, which is a few times a year, and I don't always read them in a timely fashion but it turns out he does have a good eye for articles that I'll find interesting and wouldn't necessarily find myself, and it was good to rediscover that. And then I put the pile in the recyling when I was done.)

I also dealt with Freecycle emails, resulting in people turning up on Monday to take away the armchair I listed, and also a bag of outgrown school uniform. Definitely the right choice to be rid of the armchair, the room feels significantly bigger already.

Next steps: there are no more Bags of Misc Things (in this room, anyway, cough), but there are multiple teetering piles and overstuffed shelves. What I need to do is start working through those the same way I did the Bags. I am full of the donwannas about this, but I can probably manage it for 15 minutes at a time.

Goals for week 2:

• contact the gardener
• hours-of-power: Sat x1, Sun x1, Wed x1

Comments

[kalloway]

Even though you didn't hit your initial goal, it sounds like you got a lot taken care of! Early in the process, it's hard to gauge time/energy/motivation/ability-to-make-rational-decisions so don't feel at all defeated if you keep having to adjust your plans these first weeks.

(Decision fatigue usually gets to me before anything else.)

[rmc28]

Decision fatigue is definitely a limiter on me, I'm pretty sure it's behind the donwannas because I can see the piles I need to look at and ugh I know I've got to go through them but it's going to be *work*.

[kalloway]

I'm hitting a lot of it even with just shuffling things around to get the bedroom closet empty. I know it'll all have to get sorted before it goes back and... NOPE. I don't even want to look at it right now. *sigh*

Hopefully some sleep will help and I'll be able to take care of the rest tomorrow.

(I think a lot of it is also "Ugh why did I keep this around?" and not wanting to think about my behavior?)