Clutter

I just read an amusing article over at Unclutterer called “What clutter affects an unclutterer?”  The writer is an organizer, but she talked about the areas in her life where she has a hard time keeping things uncluttered.

I thought I’d drop in quickly and share a little bit of mine.

One of the places that I have the hardest time keeping organized is my desk.  I have a small little desk in my office that has three drawers on the left side and a pencil drawer across the lap of the person sitting there.  I have the hardest time keeping those drawers cleaned out.  What’s supposed to happen is that the bottom drawer has photography things – prints and frames and CDs and manuals.  The middle drawer holds office items like extra printer ink, note paper, clip-boards, etc.  The top drawer holds my address book and my Nintendo DS and my music box.  And the pencil drawer holds my pens, pencils, stapler, tape dispenser, etc.

It’s never as tidy as all that.  I’ve got papers in the top two drawers that I need to read and figure out what I’m doing to do with them, but I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.  Justin’s transcripts from college are still sitting in my middle drawer from when I was trying to decrypt them back in November or so.  I don’t know why I’m holding on to the prints and whatever else is hiding in the bottom drawer.  I’ve got a whole box of photographs up in my closet, too, that I just need to send to a scanner and get put onto discs.  I’ve got more pens and pencils and scissors than I know what to do with.

What I really need to do is get rid of the desk entirely and work on a table that doesn’t have any drawers.  That way I can’t hide anything in there.

So, that’s my long-term tidiness issue.  My short-term problems are:

• The bathroom, where I tend to drop clothes or whatever else was in my hand when I went to change into exercise clothes or pajamas.  I have a hook on the wall and the back of the door and they tend to get covered in clothing before the end of the week . . . if they make it there from off the floor and the counter.
• The flat surfaces in my office, where bills, paperwork, and other things that should go in there somewhere just get thrown until I have time to go back and try to put them into the right places.  I have a desk, a table, a trunk, a filing cabinet, and a chair that are all good candidates for having things thrown on them.
• The front door, where I throw sweaters, jackets, purses, lunch bags, shopping bags, and shoes as I come in the door.  I really need a set of hooks there so I stop throwing them over the shoe rack and the hamper.  Shoes are my biggest culprit.  I keep some shoes downstairs and most of my dress shoes upstairs, but by the end of the week, almost all of my shoes are downstairs.

I usually find time once or twice a week to clean up these problems, especially on Friday afternoons when I get off work early.  But they build up again in a few days if I’m not really diligent about it.  The kitchen could maybe go on this list, if it’s been a busy week and I’ve not felt up to keeping it clean, but the kitchen is an area where I sincerely try to keep it as clean as I can.

Anyway!  Some of my struggles as an organizer.