Organized Chaos by Annette Dashofy

I really need to clean my desk.

I’ve been asking my readers on Facebook to help me come up with a blog topic for today. No, cleaning my desk wasn’t one of them. I’ve made a list of the suggestions, all of which are great. But one was a topic I’ve already used recently. Several others will make excellent topics closer to the release of my next book, which isn’t until May. I can’t address current events for two reasons. One, we’re all sick of hearing about politics and COVID. And two, between the time I write this and the time you’re reading it, everything could change. Let’s face it, in the past couple of weeks, “current events” mean “in the last ten minutes.”

So I’m sitting here, staring into space, which as most writers know is legitimate work. We’re pleading with the muses to honor us with an idea. Any idea. Please!

Which is when my glassy-eyed gaze settled on my desk. Good lord. How did this mess happen?

 

I intended to clear it over the holidays. I need to file important papers. Create a folder to organize my workshop handouts. Compile notes from online seminars and classes. Seriously, I have about ten notebooks and legal pads piled around my office, all with half a dozen pages of notes on various topics from marketing to law enforcement to edits for my works in progress. If I need to print something out, I have to move an unstable mountain of paperwork from the top of the printer.

 

Let’s not forget last year’s receipts, all gathered for filling out tax forms. To be honest, that stuff is the only organized pile in the room, because nothing terrifies me more than the IRS.

I would list what’s on my desk, but I don’t have enough space in this blog for it all. And if you think I’m going to show you a complete “before” picture, nope. Not happening. If I’m successful between the “now” of me writing this and the “now” of you reading it, I will post an “after” picture though. (Edit: I was and I am!) 

Is your desk neat and organized? Or do you work in the midst of chaos? Or somewhere in between? What’s on your desk?

 

 

Decluttering by Debra H. Goldstein

Twelve years ago, we downsized from a home where four kids, two parents, and a dog slept most nights to a house that has his and hers master bathrooms for the only two people who share the master bedroom. In preparation for our move, we gave away furniture, dishes, clothing, and other junk. We sent each child a box of things they insisted on keeping into adulthood – the naked plastic baby doll with no hair, named Baby, was fun to send to the now mother of two. Although we moved most of my books, boxes of them were donated to a women’s shelter, a school, and the Friends of the Library sale. We felt decluttered.

Flash forward twelve years and I realized how uncomfortably cluttered our house is. Perhaps it is realizing the kids are truly gone except visits and their homes don’t lend themselves to the furniture, china, and silver accumulated over the years as our wedding gifts or when our parents and grandparents passed. Perhaps it is realizing some of the things I took from my mother’s house when she died four years ago have meaning but aren’t really keepsakes (like the sizzle platters one can heat up and serve a steak on). Perhaps it is a desire to simplify and possibly downsize again? 

I’m not doing anything about getting rid of my husband or the things in his closet, but after talking

about my closet for months, I finally took the first steps to declutter it this week. I spent hours going through my clothing. All but three suits I kept after I retired are gone, as are the shells, skirts, and pants I thought I might wear again if I ever lost five to twenty pounds. What was hardest to get rid of was my shoe collection. Books and shoes were always my obsession, but the rebuilding of my foot means my cute, beautiful, stylish shoes will never fit again --- I’m embarrassed to admit how many pairs I packed up to donate. Let us simply say, I kept two pairs of sneakers, one ugly as sin dress shoe purchased after the surgery, and a pair of oxfords that I bought for hiking but that happen to be a brand one can slip an orthotic into. What is still in the closet lacks style, but all are functional.

Emboldened by the five bags of clothing and shoes I took out of my closet (even though it doesn’t look like anything changed), I went through the TBR bookcase I keep in the corner of that same closet. It had been overflowing, but now there is almost an entire empty shelf. Two boxes of books I took home from conferences, before I learned to leave the ones I didn’t care for on the exchange tables, are ready to donate.

I’m not finished decluttering the closet yet, but I’ve made a dent in revising my possessions in a manner similar to how I revise my writing. I revise by reading and rewriting what I previously wrote, which is much like keeping a few things that might fit in the future. Total revision is something I put off as long as possible. Like with my shoes, I hate to give up my darlings, but I know I must pare my words down to only those that serve as the structure for the story or book. It isn’t fun. It’s time consuming and often the end result doesn’t look much different than when I started, but it is. The extraneous clutter is missing.

What’s in your closet you can rid yourself of?

Clutter and Joy

Ever since Thoreau said “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify” people have been trying to find a way to live with less stuff. My friend Amy is doing the 30 articles of clothing thing – paring down her wardrobe to only the 30 most essential, most often-worn items. Other friends are trying different kinds of minimalist lifestyles, inspired by blogs like Clear Space, Be More With Less, and The Path to Simple. The names differ, but they all encourage living with intention, doing with less, and most importantly, shedding stuff.

Shedding stuff can be hard, but there are many books that offer help in kicking the clutter habit. In the best-selling The Life Changing Power of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo encourages us to purge by category – clothing, household items, heirlooms – and to keep only those things that “spark joy.”  Kondo says it’s easy to discard things if we hold our soon-to-be-jettisoned objects in our hands and thank them for their service.

Using Kondo’s method, I’ve been sorting through and discarding things in preparation for a move. It’s hard work, but as sunlight spreads across empty expanses of countertop and magazine-free coffee table, the incredible lightness of tossing stuff fills me with joy.

So thank you green sweater that looked great in the store but in real-life turns me a truly undesirable shade of unripe banana. Thank you Smoothie Master Elite 2000. I hardly knew ye. Thank you fancy chicken bouillon cubes. You expired on January 28, 2013 and I totally forgot you, pushed back behind the cranberry sauce and Stove Top stuffing. Thank you for letting me pretend that I would cook more from scratch. It was a nice dream while it lasted.

But what about the stuff that I can’t get rid of? The things that I try to toss but never fail to return to the shelf? My ballet books, purchased with babysitting money decades ago. Photo albums, it goes without saying, will always be in the To Keep pile.

Using the Kondo method has helped me discover what things are truly essential. I’d give away everything in my house before I would part with two of my daughters’ craft projects: little flowers and hearts that I put on my refrigerator door so I can see them every day. There are certainly more valuable things in my house, but if there were a fire, these are the things I would save. These little construction paper flowers and hearts spark joy for me.

What sparks joy for you?