We are all different. A statement of fact. As a result our problems with organizing and clutter as well as how we try to deal with them are different. Our “stuff” is different.
What anyone says to do to deal with organizing/decluttering problems may or may not work for you as a result. I read one book which gave “what one needs to keep” and one should get rid of everything else. As I read the book I thought of the expensive of going out and buying the items the author, a noted professional organizer, said I should have. Yes, if I followed this book I would have to go and buy things I did not have or want because the author listed these items as what one needed - she never did get around to dealing with anything I have excess of and I certainly would not go out and buy more clothes and shoes or pots and pans to match her list!
Those of us with organizing and clutter problems did not get these problems overnight and will not get rid of them overnight. What I have is the result of almost 37 years of marriage plus 26 years of my life before that plus 27 years of my husband’s life before our marriage. 60 plus years of stuff is not going to be resolved in a month!
I tend to work in fits and starts. I get one section of the house finished and when I am ready to move on to the next part of the house, something comes up - family illness, death, bed bugs, vacation, cold weather, hot weather... Or something causes an excess of stuff to accumulate for a particular project. Currently projects which are all first on my list is to finish organizing our studio - it was pulled apart for the bed bug treatment in 2009 and I finally started putting it back together, better than before, but then we needed a new dresser for storage (this is craft supplies I am talking about storing) and it took a while to find one which fit the space available and the items to go in it, almost immediately after we found one, we had mice in the adjacent kitchen and all sorts of items were stored in front of the new dresser in the studio - but I finally got most of the kitchen stuff back in the kitchen and need to work on the studio - right away - priority one. Oh, but then I have to finish a tax return for our business, clean out the folders from last year which had items only needed related to that year - which means I have to go through a box of papers from 10 years ago and shred what it is in, so that I have a box to store last year’s papers in - priority one. Oh, and I had to pull out a few folders of instructions and warranty papers to look for something for my husband and rather than try to fit it all back in, I am scanning in much of the papers as I have been planning to do and tossing out what has been scanned - I will only keep large instruction manuals and major (such as the siding, windows and roof) warranties - priority one. Plus of course one has to keep up with day to day matters.
People also work differently at projects. Some people like to do a project all the way through and work on nothing else. Others do part and then return to do the rest - often in more part sessions. Still others try to do everything at once (the dreaded multi-tasking)
I, myself, work in a combination of these techniques depending on what I am doing and my time constraints. My latest crazy idea is to scan the warranty and instruction papers into the computer, while simultaneously working on regular matters on the computer. I wondered why I never used my laptop for scanning - then I remembered, I had no scanning software in it. I went to download a freeware program which I use on my desktop and my laptop decided that it’s firewall and it’s virus protection both needed to be, separately updated. I finally got all that done and downloaded the scanning software.
I have an “all in one” and to load pages into the flat top to scan I need to get up and walk around the back of my computer to the scanner. This means that I run around, put in a page, run back to my desk, hit the button to scan and then turn to my desktop computer and work for about 2 seconds and then repeat. What I did figure out after the first day of doing this (yes, there has been a second day and a third day of doing this) was to put my laptop on an adjacent printer next to the flat bed scanner - I have to go there to put the page to be scanned in anyway and this way my desk is not taken up with the laptop and I have room to do other things - in 2 second bursts.
Does this work? Sort of. I have managed to scan in a good deal of papers. I also managed to do a number of bank reconciliations for us and organizations I am treasurer of, check email, deal with renewals for a club I am in, make a revised membership list for another club, pay 2 bills and post them to Quickbooks, help husband with something he uses Quickbooks for on his computer, and do my regular backups - and backup the drive with the papers I am scanning after I finish them for the day. If I did the stuff separately would it be done in the same time? I don’t know, but I do know that if I was to sit and scan stuff in I would be bored, this way at least I am not bored. I am also getting exercise running back and forth around my computer desk. I also am doing some of the work on my desktop computer standing up and that is suppose to be healthier.
How do you prefer to work on organizing and decluttering?
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