Jun. 20, 2008 - My Office – A place for everything and everything in its place

My office is my main organisation goal for this year – to bring it under control.  I am about ½ way there so that is encouraging.  But I am sure you are familiar with the feeling of getting half way through a large project and then becoming as stumped and overwhelmed as you were at the beginning – it is a very immobilising feeling.

That is where I am at today.  I’ve made progress but I’m not going anywhere now.

So I have stopped and given it some thought and have written myself some framework ideas:

Have a system

~ simple enough to use

~ use it every day!

I have come to the conclusion, after years of trying to deal with clutter, is that the first step must be to make homes for the things you want to keep.  Everything needs to have its place.    I have spent many years sorting stuff into three piles – toss, keep, giveaway.  The keep pile then stays there, as a pile, and it grows and grows, and I start the process again – toss, keep, giveaway.  If I had a home to put the stuff then I would be able to deal with it then and there.

This means dealing with bookcases, cupboards, filing cabinets first, not last.

So this has become my focus in the office – to make a home for the things that I need in the office.

Paper – a filing cabinet

Finances – files for invoices to pay, received, and Statement

Digital information – computer filing system needs fine tuning

Books – I need to have our homeschool resources in one spot

Daily paperwork – to do files, in tray, to do list