Julie Leung has put a great deal of thought into snapshots of her organizational life. I love this kind of pondering. For the person who is there, it seems overwhelming, but somehow I find it refreshing. Look where all you can go from here, it makes me think. Maybe that's strangely optimistic, but there you go.
Children's paperwork: I save these in a big stack under the bed. Once I even kept them dust-free by using an under-bed container. Then for thank-you notes I just send off a packet with the card inside. I like to think it makes an impression. It sure fills up somebody's fridge if they want it to. I suppose mailing off the contents of our recycling bin would do the same.
Children's toys: We made little stacks last weekend, hoping to clean up enough that we could ever hire a cleaning service ever again. We chose 3 as the number of piles, and divided like items, so a puzzle went in each pile for example. It got a little arbitrary at the end, but there's a great selection now and only 1/3 the stuff. Now we only have to rotate. But the trick was to not involve the kid at all, it made it much easier.
Books: When poverty strikes, I sell my book collection. This is teriffic, because libraries have better service, and are free, and I can't believe I waited so long before using them. Plus no clutter or the librarians will be out to get you to return your books. They can be very persuasive.
Flylady: I as well never subscribed due to their inability to give birth to technically clueful children who could teach e-mail etiquette and ability to manage a simple mailing list.
Used baby products: Drop em off! We'll take em! Although at 7 months we're buying 18month clothes and wearing size 5 nappies. Oh well. Gotta stop feeding this guy.
Clutter: It's easier for me because I believe in bribery. Want to play Halo 2? Pick up your toys! Although nothing in the world will allow Halo 2 in the house anymore. Things I thought I would never say: "Don't shoot your friends!" It just got too depressing, my 4 year old wandering around corpses with some guy nagging at him to take out something called a boarding craft. Sounds a little too much like home life, to me. At least the nagging part. Okay, I can be corpse like at times too.
Blogs: I regularly delete my entire news folder and start it up from scratch. I always delete unread items when I do this. When reading, I usually only skim looking for either a) personal posts I can use for fuel for my happiness focus back here, or b) stuff relevant for work that I can forward.
GTD: I wish I could read one person who started out skeptical of it and then found it worked great for them as time went on. Instead it's always "It was the perfect system but then I fell behind and now I feel like crap it's all my fault." Holy smokes. That got something done, alright. What I like is having a theme to the year, either family or individual, and that makes everything else fall away. Like you don't have to cook AND be a genius poet. One year is just the perfect length of time because you know another year is coming, you have plenty of time to at least try everything. Or at least 60-70 more things depending on how old you are now. I strongly disagree with the common theory that life balance means you have a little bit of everything going on all the time. Balance might be that you do one thing at work and one thing at home. OK two things at home. But to me balance means peace that nothing is nipping at your heels and you can live in the moment. That's the theory anyway.
Gluttony: I go on news boycotts if it affects me too deeply in a specific unproductive sort of way. Lots of people live and die by the news. To not read the morning paper would be a crime. I skip the news the way skinny people skip lunch and go for a jog instead. I skip the news and go for a nice write. The external world has a funny relevance. I think it's healthy to have a boundary that it can't cross. Lots of people don't have that boundary or don't believe it's morally correct. I think we have to do what's best for ourselves first, like it says in the pamphlet on the airplane.
Stuff: Out of my 10 years of marriage I have spent maybe 3 of them throwing things away full time. Meaning that's my full time job. Hubby comes home and asks "what did you throw away today, dear?" (Just kidding, he never asked, thankfully. Once I put our third and mostly-broken TV on the sidewalk with a free sign on it. I never did live that down. ) My point is it was my job. I have paid for daycare in order to have free time to throw things away. The storage boxes came, I filled them up, and it took maybe 2 months per box to get rid of it. That was just one example. So this purging is a big investment I'm reaping the rewards of now. And of course I'm delighted about it, and would do it all again in a second. But it was my whole life, no job, no hobbies, just getting rid. Scary.
