Another layer of decluttering | Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

I’ve just finished cleaning my office yet again and rearranging the furniture in it. I now have absolutely zero clutter in there and no excuse not to come in and sit down to work right away each day. Part of my routine is typically to rearrange my stacks of Work To Do in separate piles around the desk area. My desk faces my southwest corner, and I look out a south window to my left and the west window to my right. Under each window is a long credenza, and on each credenza are stacks of the current projects I am working on. I like seeing everything in one layer like that. But sometimes I get a lot of mail and some of it gets placed on top of the credenza, just until I get to it. And 5 and 20 deliveries later, my credenzas are filled with mail and supplies and I finally have to deal with it if I want a clear working space again.

I stay fairly clutter-free, especially for someone who receives as much mail as I do. People send me a lot of things that I would love to look at, when I have time. I used to shuffle these from one stack to the next until I finally just created an entire drawer for “Stuff to read when I have time”. Everything has a place and today I made sure to put everything back in its place. All supplies unpacked and to the supply closet. All books unpacked and stacked for logging in. All mail open and sorted. All bills into the flip calendar.

As usual, there were about a dozen random sheets I didn’t know what I’d saved them for, but my motto is “when in doubt, toss it out,” so I did. Now everything is put away nice and neat, and there is plenty of empty space as well, to begin new stacks. This room looks so huge now, especially with the 5 rolling tables put back in the shed.

So now, in the morning when I sit down at my desk, I no longer have to wade through about an hour of moving papers around (a’ la deck chairs on the Titanic) before settling down to work. Now I can come right in, sit at an organized station and get productive right away.

Like on the billing. The billing I should have begun Monday. So this morning I’ve come into the office bright and early and I’ll whip out the billing by the end of the day.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.