Today, I decided to work in my office -- to get organized for the New Year. I'd been lax in my administrative duties and was beginning to have trouble locating documents and information. So, I started by gathering up all of the piles of papers and folders from around the house and emptying the closet of all of the boxes (the ones that have been sitting there since June of 2002 when I moved in -- no sense getting in a hurry about these things). Once these were all stacked about the room, I was horrified to see that there was barely a path from the door to my desk -- a fact over which I teased my mother mercilessly just the day before in her office.
Refusing to accept this as my fate (my mother's office has looked like this for years), I rolled up my sleeves and started to work. I began by bringing in the industrial sized garbage bags and firing up the shredder. There were electric bills from 1990, cell phone bills and instruction manuals for phones that are long gone, nearly every pay stub I'd ever received, college papers, letters home, birthday cards, Christmas cards, Valentines and Easter cards. I found my English Lit book, my History of Western Music, my biology text book, my horticulture lab notes, theatre reviews, poetry, year books and journals -- all of which just extended the processing time, because, of course, I had to flip through them all!
After 10 hours of sorting, shredding, filing, consolidating and arranging, I have completed about 75% of my office project. I hauled out two -- yes TWO -- industrial sized garbage bags of shredded documents, junk mail and assorted papers and set up files for all of the remaining documents. All of my books are arranged by subject matter and size and EVERYTHING is labeled. (This was just standard operating procedure before I met my ex... for some reason, being married to him put an end to my penchant for organization.)
Since I no longer make resolutions, let me just make this PROMISE: NEVER AGAIN! I have put a sorter tray on top of the supply chest labeled, "SHRED." All junk mail and credit card offers will be destroyed immediately and I refuse to keep more than two years worth of receipts and seven years of taxes on file. (I had tax returns dating back to 1981 -- my very first job -- of course I had to keep that one!) I have also (gasp) thrown away all of the Christmas cards I received this year and all of the ones from years past, save a few special ones from my parents. Surely this is a major step in the right direction. Now, if I could only bring myself to get rid of my high school Spanish tests! ?Por qué?
1 comment:
oh my heavens Lauren - you were BUSY girlfriend! I also need to organize and I wish I had the tenacity like you.
Way to go!
Post a Comment