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| [It's far, far worse than this now!] |
People who know me know that my office is an uninhabitable, unimaginable pit full of clutter, crap and the detritus of a thirty plus year career of total irrational hoarding. It's bad. And it just seems to get worse... and not always down to me. Certain home improvements have impacted unfavourably on my office and created an even greater disaster zone of books and paper and 'stuff' recently.
And today, this is getting me down more than ever, because himself is sorting *his* office out and has lots of space, can move, and can find what he wants. Which makes me very envious, even though I know my predicament is mostly [well, completely] of my own making. Sigh...
Something needs to be done, but I think I can't really tackle it until I get the first draft of IN THE FLESH done, something I intend to complete by the end of April, with luck. But when that time comes, I'm going to take action. I'm going to have to be stern with myself over things like magazines, and set a date before which everything will be thrown away, with no exceptions. I've always found it hard to let go of such things as books, magazines and VHS tapes, my thinking being that one day, I might need something I've read or watched as research or background for my books. Not being a person who's travelled much or done much in the way of exciting jobs, I depend on research materials a lot, to supplement a vivid imagination and a sort of 'empathy' for other lives and times and situations... But I started all this hoarding long before I had access to the internet, and now, my first port of call for research/background is the web, where I can usually find much, much more information, and probably better, than I might have gleaned from an old magazine article or a book I read years ago....
So, come the merry month of May, I'll be starting the long, long project to restore my office to the state of... well... and office. And that, I suppose, is my greatest, belated, New Year's Resolution. Wish me luck...
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Eating: chocolate finger biscuits
Watching: snooker
Reading: Daily Life in a Victorian House - Laura Wilson [excellent children's book]
Writing: nothing yet
Feeling: completely fed up and frustrated by Dumpster Office of Doom
5 comments:
O.M.G.
I almost passed out looking at that picture. And you say it's worse now?!
I'd need smelling salts.
I'm not what I would consider an OCD, white-glove kind of person, but too much clutter and my brain melts. I have countless coworkers who seem to "need" their clutter to function and when I walk past their cubicles I marvel at how they can work around all that stuff.
Best of luck digging out. My advice? Little bits at a time, and be totally and completely ruthless. If you haven't thought about it in ages, and even better, forgot you owned it? Out the door it should go.
Crikey! That's worse than mine was! Sorry, that probably didn't help :(
Perhaps I'd better send my fella round, he'd have that place sorted in a few hours. He'd probably also have thrown out your computer, manuscripts and the like, but it'd be tidy! LOL.
I'm being very good and keeping mine tidy now. Really wish I'd done before and after photos!
You can do it!! *cheering you on*
I must say I'm with Wendy, a little at a time will be less harrowing on you.
You'll get there though, and you'll have a fab place to work again!
Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I think getting rid of little bits at a time is a good strategy, to assist with the big push in May, when I've got this first draft laid down.
It's not really possible to do that right at the moment, because our bin men aren't coming round 'cos of the snow and ice, so the paper etc would just build up and build up in a different part of the house! LOL
I think the ultimate plan isn't really to work in there, but have it as a nice, usable repository of research materials and books. A little library. I always work on a laptop now, anyway, and doubt if I would ever start using a desktop computer again, even if I could work in the office.
This makes me feel much better about my own cluttered rooms.
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