My wife and my mother-in-law spent this week totally rearranging and repurposing our office. Once it gets back in order I'll post pictures. The extra space we have in there now is way better than even the clever frugal corner desk brought.
The new office is more open and less claustrophobic. Granted, we still have much of the contents still in our living room, but we're going through it and thinning it out. For the time being, the office is a breath of fresh air.
Stepping out of my office to my feed reader online, I saw that Jim over at Bargaineering had launched a membership component to his site, complete with its own currency. This was following a launch of the forums a few months ago, and recent accolades from Liz Pulliam Weston as he was featured front and center on her list of the 100 most useful websites. Some time back he had quit his day job to publish this website, and others, full-time. In short, there are lots of great things happening over in the Jim Wang department.
Then something hit me. Jim, and other successful people like him, don't dabble. They find their knitting and work at it. They have a few choice things that they absolutely love to do, and they do them well. I doubt Jim, or anyone else successful for that matter, could accomplish much if they had a million irons in the fire. They may try a lot of things, but they quickly figure out what works and what doesn't, and chops off the stuff that doesn't.
My cluttered office was but one manifestation of a very cluttered life. It was strewn from end to end with unfinished taxes, unsold (no, unlisted!) magazines, unread financial statements, unstudied materials for an untaken auctioneering exam. My e-mail inbox wasn't much better. E-mail from so many places, so many sites begun but not really maintained, so much noise. E-mails from dozens of traffic exchanges that I hardly ever surf at any more, but keep in the hopper, just in case I find something else to try to promote.
It's all pretty overwhelming, and it's often much easier to head over the Addicting Games or Tetris Friends and spend a couple of hours being totally unproductive. But at least there's no chaos there. There's something to focus on. It's calming while it lasts.
I realized that if I try to do everything, I will accomplish nothing. Just the act of not really letting go of anything drags down the important, meaningful things. There's an incessant chatter going on: things popping into mind when nothing can be done about them, like thousands of Post-It® Notes flying around just out of reach. And they don't go away. These are things I've signed myself up to do, at least mentally, and they'll stay there, buzzing around me like a bunch of mosquitoes until I pay attention to them, one by one.
The way to get out of being overwhelmed like this is not to get more organized. The way to get out is to admit that I've just plain taken on too much stuff and too many commitments, and that I need to get rid of the stuff that isn't working. Hauling everything out of the office so that it could be rearranged got me started on thinning out my stuff, but it did nothing to begin thinning out my commitments. Now that the ball is rolling, though, there's more chance that I'll be able to get out of some commitments and sell off some mental baggage.
If seeing the office decluttered and open gave me such a sigh of relief, I can't really imagine what kind of sigh of relief I'll be having when my life is just as decluttered. And with my brain relaxed and newly unburdened, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to accomplish some really worthwhile things.
Any of you gone through a giant decluttering? How did it feel? Did your productivity soar? What else?
Great post, MBH. I think I am in the same boat-too much “stuff”, and to much “stuff going on.” I have been working lately on the physical clutter, but like you, I need to focus on some of the commitments and things I “plan” on doing but never do and just drop some of them.
Hi! I came across this new personal finance application called moneyStrands. I have just started using it and like what I see. It helped me declutter my finances and the pain of going through all those numerous bank statements, credit card statements etc. It also give me advice on the kind of credit cards, plans etc. which would work for me, basing the analysis on my earnings and spending habits. The best part is I can also access it on my iPhone.
Agree, agree….. I feel the need to declutter frequently, and it always helps. But it might be like getting back into debt: in order for the clutter to not come back into your life, we might need to work on our priorities and get our goals straightened out. I know the clutter still keeps coming back for me, which means I have more work to do on this.
To answer your question yes, we went through a major rehaul of offices. Basically I didn’t have one and all of my stuff was in boxes and I was working off a laptop. We moved and I decided that I couldn’t live that way anymore. I bought myself an L shaped desk 2 filing cabinets and set off on an organizational challenge. Now I have all my scrapbook stuff in drawers, my pens and writing pads all put away, a place for my laptop and an file for stuff for school.
The next thing I decluttered was my basement and labeled all of my plastic boxes with a label maker and could finally find all of things I had been storing for years. Actually I through out a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen in years.
Now my schedule works a lot better not having to search through boxes to look for one specific thing. I know exactly where everything is.
Thanks for sharing your story.
paper clutter is so overwhelming and causes stress. I see my bills and important notes scaterred in my home office. I’m currently using a unique memo pad holder and it actually look great in my home office.