While I’ve made a little bit of progress in my efforts to de-clutter at home, I have made much more progress at work. A few months ago I was abruptly “uprooted” out of my office I had inhabited for the past 3 years, and found packing and moving the amount of “stuff” I had accumulated in that time quite cumbersome.

I had kept up with records destruction on time schedules, and still had a lot of stuff to move. This included a lot of personal items that had either been brought to the office by me or “gifted” to me, including a small refrigerator and microwave. All personal items had to be taken home as this was a large-scale move of people out of a building that required temporary storage, and I had only two hours to accomplish this task. Quite daunting, to say the least.

So, to prevent the chaos that ensured on that date in July from happening again, I intend to keep the bare minimum at the office. The plan:

1. Keep only a few necessary personal effects, limited to one small drawer and a few small items for display.

2. Purge all outdated records annually at the beginning of each fiscal year.

3. Permanent file of records by date for easy purging, unless other requirements apply.

4. Follow a personal “clean desk policy” and file all items away by the end of the day, either into permanent filing or in a specific “active” file in a drawer.

5. Give away or throw away office supplies that haven’t been used in over a year.

While I was housed in a temporary location without all my “stuff”, I found I was much more productive than usual. Why? I determined it was because I only had in front of me the items I needed for the task at hand, and not other clutter to confuse me and slow me down. So, I intend to continue as a minimalist in the office, as obviously it makes a difference in my productivity.

I am now 99% moved in and feel more organized than I have felt since early in my career before I began accumulating so much office stuff. As they say, less is more. I’m liking it, too.

I must confess…I am a clutterer. Not someone who just has a few things here and there lying around…I mean the type who walks through the house using paths and stepping over junk. I’ve come to this realization just today, or at least, I am now admitting it. Having watched a couple of episodes of the television show “Hoarders” last night, I realize I have a problem. I’m no hoarder-I don’t necessarily want to keep all this stuff. It’s just dealing with the “stuff”-it is overwhelming.

This problem has plagued me my entire life in some way or another. However, I had a major driving force behind me that managed to keep me in line most of my life-my mother. She was on the “neat freak” side of things, so I couldn’t get away with a messy bedroom for long. When I moved into my own place when I was 22, I struggled to keep it de-cluttered, but always managed to do so to accomodate visitors. When I returned to this area, I kept the house halfway neat most of the time, knowing my parents could drop by at any time.

Since my mother passed away, however, things have progressively gone downhill. My house wasn’t terribly messy when she died, but it wasn’t long before I was bringing some of her “stuff” home, which I really didn’t want to deal with at that time. So, it sat in boxes in the corner of my kitchen. They arrived there in 2003…and remain there to this date. Things kept accumulating in that area, with a possible underlying factor being me trying to hide it and not deal with it.

For a couple of years it was stuff in the corners of the kitchen, the spare room, some in the bedroom, and some in the corners of the living room. I could still have visitors over in the living room, and could make an excuse for everything else as being “in transition” as I re-organized the house. That worked for awhile, but then I went back to school to finish my degree-and spent even less time maintaining the house.

The clutter continued to pile up, and eventually it got so overwhelming that I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I could not have anyone over to the house, and was mortified of someone coming to the door and wanting to come in the house. The thought of digging in and trying to clean it up causes me great anxiety-at times I wish that a tornado or something would just come along and blow it all away. It would be a liberating experience.

But I am to the point that I know I must do something, and cannot keep making excuses to keep from cleaning. I am looking to ways to keep my life clutter-free from here on out, like downloading movies and books instead of purchasing.  But I need to deal with what is there now sooner or later.

So, the quest begins. For most of my life I cleaned to satisfy my mother’s expectations, but now I have to do it for myself. Baby steps…

Today’s headline in purgatory:

“Ted Kennedy arrives and faces Mary Jo Kopechne”

She kicks his ass

He’s at it again…Mayor Robert Butler of Marion, Illinois showing why he’s been elected…how many times? Here he is talking about the possibility of Gitmo detainees being transferred to the Marion Federal Penitentiary.