When it comes to organizing, there are several varieties. There's the day-to-day picking up and putting away of all the varied items that seem to walk out of closets and cabinets and plunk themselves on floors and surfaces every single day. There's the quick pick-up we do when company is coming in half an hour or less. There's the how-did-this-pile-get-so-big pick-up we do when things have accumulated on a countertop, desktop or table. And then there's the organizational overhaul, often kicked off by one of these smaller scale endeavors.
For me, summer is the time for organizational overhauls.
This summer, because I'm not teaching a class, I've rediscovered how much more leisurely my schedule can be. Suddenly, time, energy, and inclination to tackle problem areas have aligned, and I'm motivated to sort through accumulated items (mostly papers) and re-vamp the systems that have become overloaded due to a surplus of stuff. And, since I'm home more and need to devote less time to planning for classes, I'm noticing the less-than-stellar ways in which I deal with the things that don't have a home or a dedicated system.
In short? A pile of papers is not an organizational plan and a counter is not a storage container.
This summer, I targeted one trouble spot in particular: the counter in my office. In fact, last week, I publicly promised to spend at least 15 minutes a day on it until it was free of piles and held only the things that were supposed to live there. When I got home from vacation, I even pulled out a calendar that had the whole year on one page so I could cross off each day, only to discover that it was a 2019 calendar and therefore easily disposed of. Writing this post reminded me of that, however, and I now have pressed a 2020 calendar into service, crossing off Saturday, Sunday, Monday and yesterday and creating the beginning of my Jerry Seinfeld calendar.
As expected, the piles on the counter consist mostly of homeless items. This means I need to find places to put them. On Saturday night, after I spent my designated fifteen minutes on the counter (task #1), I sorted through two file bins that do not live on the counter (task #2), condensing them into one and freeing up the other. On Sunday night, I relocated some items displaced by the file bins sort (task #3), sorted through three containers holding contact information, tossed the old and put the ones that were still relevant into a business card file (which now needs a home). I used a picture frame on the counter to display post cards (also on the counter), which necessitated rearranging things I had on the walls in order to find a place to hang the frame (task #4). While most of this was part of the main job of clearing the counter, some of it was not.
Meanwhile, all of this occurred on the heels of our return from vacation. As I put away the bag I keep pre-packed with toiletries, I decided it was time to clean out the bin in which the bag lives (task #5). This led to more tossing, but also to uncovering more items that should be stored somewhere else, which led to taking a hard look at the top of my dresser (task #6), which has also become cluttered and in need of an overhaul.
When did all of this happen?
Life gets busy and, when it does, we revert to the habits at the root of our styles. If I ever doubted that I'm an I need to see it/drop and run kind of girl, one look at the top of my dresser or office counter is enough to send those doubts packing. And, when I see multiple areas in need of assistance, it's rarely a straight line from cluttered to clear.
Because I love to organize, I see all of this as an opportunity -- a problem to be solved. And, since I have the time to tackle everything, I'm not overwhelmed but rather excited by the possibility of how things can look now that I've stopped looking past what needs to be done and am ready to dig in and do it.
My tendency to take on multiple projects simultaneously and redecorate as I reorganize definitely means it will all look worse before it looks better but, as someone with an I need to see it personal style, I recognize that all of those steps are a part of the process. And, as long as I stick to my promise to spend at least fifteen minutes a day chipping away at that counter, it's not really so terrible if I work on a few other things, too, just to keep things interesting. To avoid the drawbacks that accompany multitasking, I just need to make sure I focus on one area at a time, chunking my time instead of trying to do it all at once.
It's my process.
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