I want to show you my accomplishment over the last three days.
I know. You just gasped in shock and amazement. Your heart filled with envy. I am sure you wish for a corner for your very own.
Yeah.
What’s exciting about this corner is that it does not have three boxes of paperwork left over from Mom (as well as a computer in need of decommissioning.) Instead, those three boxes have been filed in my filing cabinet (along with my stuff), shredded, or generally tossed out.
And that took me the better part of three days (plus the last two months).
Through a flex plan at my job, I get every other Friday off. I like to use this day to run errands, go to the doctor, and other little tasks. The theory is that it leaves my real weekends free to do other things.
As a theory, it’s a good one. The flaw is that Friday goes according to plan, then I spend Saturday and Sunday cleaning up the mess of what didn’t get done, or got started but not finished, on Friday.
Here is what Friday looked like (I’ll admit I lost track around 2pm).
- Trim Key’s nails
- Walk
- Unload car from art talk on Thursday
- Take back cans for deposit
- Laundry (3 loads)
- Fill up bird feeders
- Fill up little free library
- Unload dishwasher
- Unload items in my studio from art talk on Thursday
- Clean counters
- Call NW Natural (Mom’s estate)
- Call Point Pest Control
- Call Medicare (Mom’s estate)
- Get art from River Gallery
- Lunch
- Library
- File (includes shredding and labels) (repeat…)
- Email (repeat…)
- Artists in Action parasols (emails)
- WSO (emails)
- Balance checkbook
- Pay bills (repeat…)
I was still working on various things on my to do list at 10pm when I decided to go to bed.
The next day, I took Key to a nose work trial (he got his Level 1 Exterior and Level 1 Vehicle titles!) When I came back, I did more filing and paying bills.
And then today, I volunteered at the nose work trial. And when I came back, I got groceries, took out the trash, did another load of laundry, and did more filing and emailing and finally got the last of the boxes gone.
Doesn’t that corner look FABULOUS?
Yeah, I think so too.
That corner looks terrific! Congratulations! As a lifelong “paper hoarder”, I know efficiency when I see it.
I actually fear boxes of paper. How did this happen to me? I think it came from life experiences starting in childhood. A clear sheet of paper was only to be used for something important by an adult. However, “we kids” could use the cast-off page from our Dad’s daily office calendar which was not much bigger than an index card. We could use those to draw on with pencils —- sharpened by jack-knives or by carefully using our Dad’s office sharpener. Since paper and materials were scarce, they were to be saved and multipurposed. (Now I probably sound more like your Dad! We were the same age and lived through the same life-experience timeframe though about a thousand miles apart in actual mileage.)
After schooling came a teaching career. Now it was heavy-duty materials saving time. I’d had no idea how much “stuff” we elementary teachers had to save up and squirrel away for classroom projects. No egg cartons were tossed; no extra buttons lost. All could be used for something! If we ran out of jars of paste (no glue for kids to use yet), I’d have to mix up a batch of flour and water. (Once a principal saw some empty paste jars I’d washed out which had been saved by the previous teacher and declared I could have no more paste for the rest of the year!) You see the pattern!
As a librarian, we had to “save up” information and sources. Every scrap of reference was valued for its potential use. (Computers were not in everyday use yet; cards of information were.)
With artist-related businesses, no records of anything could easily be tossed—-for years. There had to be proof of payments for materials and supplies and for customer billings and receipts. Those were the “hard-copy” days! Yes, we now had a computer; but it could go down and was an early device. When we were audited, our records “saved” us. Likewise, when a vendor questioned a billing, we had proof. Boxes and more boxes piled up. How long do we have to keep all this stuff before we can start to toss it? ! Nightmare “box city”! Toss some; now acquire more! Oh, no!
Then, there’s the artist’s dilemma. As Bob has said, “I don’t want to be the biggest collector of my own work!” (He’s preparing for a “studio sale” this weekend postponed from last week’s “Snomaggedon”.)
At any rate, Tara, I admire your ability to organize and to let things go to their rightful best places—-whether it’s to recycling or garbage or Goodwill. You have a brave heart!