I’m trying to organize my office. I’ve had so much office-type crap stuck in so many places over the years that trying to pull it together and arrange it (and purge much of it) is daunting. I have learned:
I have too many red pens. These are just a few of them.
When a pen doesn’t write or a mechanical pencil is broken, throw it away immediately. Or you’ll end up with a wastebasket that looks like mine.
I’m obsessed with wooden pencils. I found two more boxes of them after I took this photo.
When you get free calendars, don’t stick them somewhere until you need them, because eleven years later…
It was/is liberating to through such things away. And it seems to be easier as you unpack than when you are packing…
I find myself saying “this COULD be used for SOMETHING one day”- then I throw whatever it is a way to help reduce such things from accumulating again.
Also I found that I felt a lot less sentimental several days into carting crap to the new house from the old. Suddenly throwing stuff away seemed like the better option!
Do you have enough room in your new office to keep everything together?
As I’m going through my current cleaning/organizing phase, I think that it will be so much less stuff to go through and get rid of if/when we do downsize.
I’m also going through everything and seeing what I need and don’t need. I would never part with my pens though. Ever.
There is a limit to how many pens one needs. Also coffee cups. I have an abundance.
Yes. There is room. It just needs me to take the time to organize.
We found a place that would shred our sensitive documents for free. I had one huge box and one medium box completely full of paper that required shredding. That made me feel a lot less burdened.
More purging to come…
This is the hallmark of a writer, or maybe this is an occupational hazard.
The red pens are the hallmark of an editor, too–ask some of the students and writers who’ve had their pages bleed at my hands. 😉
Office supplies are my downfall. Oh, and blank books. Need more storage… 😉
I hear you. I have an entire box full of blank journals. Ridiculous! But fun.
I can’t remember who taught me this, but there’s a grid I use when I’m moving. Across the top there are two options: I use it (or need it); I don’t use it (or don’t need it). Vertically, there are also two options: I love it; I don’t love it.
You end up with four quadrants – I use it and I love it (which are keepers); I use it and I don’t love it (do I have something else I can replace it with, or is it time to toss it and get myself a replacement?), I don’t use it and I love it (am I keeping it for any reason other than sentimentality? Is there someone else who could give it a useful loved home, or somewhere I can donate it?), and I don’t use it and don’t love it (time to be tossed out).
If it falls into the “I *could* use it” camp, I try to be brutally honest with myself about the last time I did, and the likelihood I will. The latter usually gets me to throw it out.
It also helped when I helped my mother unpack once. Some people watch “hoarders” to feel better about themselves? I helped my mother unpack.
(“Why do you have five spatulas?”)
You mean I’m not supposed to have five spatulas? This is TOO HARD.
I am purging after the fact. Which sounds crazy, but first I had to figure out what we actually own. So much of it has been packed away for ten to twenty years. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love and want to use it, just no room! Now there’s room and I need to re-evaluate…
I could only imagine the response to this one, oh there was a sale at Spatula City! I use one for cooking eggs, one for patching walls, and that doggy shaped one for…