Project Simplify, My progress - weeks 2 to 5 Options

[The Flying Docto...]

A quick introduction: I happened across Project Simplify a couple of weeks ago (some of you might have seen my post about it on the 'Fun And Games' forum' You can read more about it here, but, basically, it consists of the person who runs it posting one decluttering project each Monday for five successive weeks and those of us who take part writing about how we got on, with before and after pictures for everyone to see. I've already blogged about the first week's challenge, which was to declutter our clothes (you can read how I got on with that here, if you're interested), but, as it seemed more on topic for here, I thought I'd write about weeks 2 to 5 on this forum rather than on my blog. I've just finished the second challenge and will get a post up about that shortly.

[The Flying Docto...]

OK, here's the story for Week 2 (warning - long and wordy):

The mission this week has been to deal with our paper clutter. I knew right away that this wasn't going to be the same sort of comprehensive success as decluttering my wardrobe had been.

Another thing I knew straight away was that following the list of how-tos that this blogger gives wouldn't really work out for me, as my paper clutter problems are a bit different from the ones she covers.  I already do get rid of junk mail right away; I'm reasonably ruthless about getting rid of drawings the children have done that I know perfectly well aren't going to be of interest to any of us in twenty years' time; and I already have a 'take action' box for papers I need to do something about. Here it is, see:



It's the black thing you can just glimpse under the pile of papers on the left. 

You may have noticed the point at which the plan falls apart: taking action on the things in the take-action box.  That, alas, is a definite weak point in my system.  You may also have noticed that I appear to have just a wee bit of difficulty in keeping the rest of my computer table clear.

I also have to confess that this is, alas, a mere fraction of my total paper clutter. There is, for one thing, the perennial Journal Backlog Pile. I'm actually doing well with keeping up with the journal reading, these days, but along the way I've also taken up the project of making notes on any useful points I read before I throw each journal out. So, instead of constantly having huge piles of unread journals, I constantly have a huge pile of read journals waiting to have notes made on them. Oh, and I still have piles of unread journals from the years when I was struggling to balance a full-time job with two very small children and simply lost all energy for getting on with any kind of studying. And various other stacks of old notes, saved articles, and goodness knows what-all on my study bookshelf, all of which needs sorting out.

However. I had a week to work on this, not three years, and I decided to focus my efforts where they were needed most of all.  So, I have been spending this week both on tidying my computer table and on actually taking action on some of the stuff in my take-action box. As Hot Spots go, this one is my perennial Towering Inferno. I'd hoped to get on top of the Journal Backlog Pile as well, and I did in fact get notes made on a few journal issues, but ultimately the computer table ended up being this week's big project.

A couple of comments: My usual approach to my take-action pile (the box is a recent introduction) is to tidy the pile a bit, fish out some of the junk that's got in there that can actually be chucked or shredded, and work on some of the relatively straightforward stuff such as reconciling my bank statements.  This then eases my conscience enough that I can rest on my laurels, and the more time-consuming stuff such as reviewing my life insurance, the less important stuff such as answering personal letters, and the more terminally boring stuff such as filling in questionnaires, all gets left for another day which, like jam tomorrow, never actually arrives. As a system, this definitely leaves something to be desired.

So, this week, I decided it was time to try a different approach. Instead of just vaguely stirring the contents of my desk in search of stuff I could easily deal with, I took out absolutely everything in the take-action box, sorted every bit of it into stacks categorised by the action that needed to be taken (statements needed to be reconciled, pension contribution forms needed to be filled in and sent off, a questionnaire from my daughter's nursery needed to be filled in and put in her bag, etc.), and listed each item or category of items down the left-hand side of a piece of paper. (OK, so it ran to two pieces of paper, who's counting.) Next to each category, on the right-hand side, I wrote the list of actions that needed to be taken. There it was; a comprehensive list of what I actually needed to do about my to-do box. Then, instead of going for the quick fix of reconciling my statements, I aimed to sort out some of the more difficult stuff that I'd been putting off. On top of that, of course, I spent every moment I could spare from that and from life's other various demands on going through the other stuff on that table and getting it put away, thrown away, or filed away where it should be.

Thanks to which, my computer table now looks like this:



And, of course, what doesn't show on that photo is the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I have finally completed those questionnaires, sent off those forms, and generally got to grips with at least some of the lurking tasks that were casting their shadow of guilt over my life. While I still have quite a lot of stuff in the take-action box and plenty of piles of clutter elsewhere to deal with, I'm still very pleased with my week's work.

[KarissaA]

Great job!

[The Flying Docto...]

Thanks, Karissa!

In case anyone was wondering what happened to Week 3, I haven't forgotten it; the task was sorting out kids' stuff, and, as luck would have it, this was something I happened to have already done quite a lot of in the previous couple of weeks. There's still more I want to do, a little of which I did do over the week, but things have reached the point where really I want to have a chat with my husband about where some stuff should go and I just didn't have the chance to do that. Since I didn't take 'before' photos before starting that area of decluttering, the photos I could have taken during the week wouldn't have been very impressive – not so much 'before' and 'after' as 'intermediate' and 'marginally further on intermediate' – so in the end I didn't bother with putting a post up about it last week. I'll do that one when I can.

Meanwhile, post coming later tonight (I hope!) about Week 4.

[The Flying Docto...]

Task for Week 4 – the fridge and pantry!

I knew I'd be limited in what I could do in this area, as cooking is primarily my husband's domain and I didn't want to throw out food without checking with him first. However, I was still pleased at the thought of doing this one because our fridge desperately needed cleaning and I knew taking everything out of it would give me the chance to do that. Besides, I knew there'd have to be at least a few things lurking at the back that were so horribly out of date I wouldn't need to check before throwing them out.

I actually started with our snack cupboard. I'd have expected this to be a long project:



As it turned out, it took one “Let's see what I can do in the ten minutes before I have to go get DD from her nap” session and one “Let's see what I can do in the bit of time before my husband comes downstairs from his shower” session, and the whole lot was sorted:



So, fired up by that and with a few hours to spare on the Friday afternoon, I got stuck in to the fridge-clearing. (Almost literally, given how badly it needed cleaning.)

Before:



It was simple enough, although time-consuming – I took all the stuff off one shelf or out of one drawer, cleaned that area very thoroughly with hot soapy water, threw away anything that obviously needed throwing away, put everything else back as neatly as I could, and then went on to the next area. After doing that, I went through, made a list of all the things I'd found that I thought could be chucked as far as I was concerned but wasn't sure whether my husband might want, and e-mailed him asking what to do about each of those items. (He was happy for me to chuck nearly all of them).

The result:



Not sure that totally does the change justice, as the biggest change is how much cleaner it is now. Also, I didn't think to take a close-up of the sliced meat drawer before I cleared it, and that's the section I tossed the most stuff from - wish I did have a before-and-after of that one!

I didn't have time to work on a couple of other cupboards that I'd ideally have liked to get to, but any week's work that includes getting that fridge clean is a good week's work and I'm very pleased with it. Thanks again, Tsh, and I'm eagerly waiting to find out what our final project will be!

[Desert Bloom]

You have done an excellent job of completing these tasks, Dr. Sarah!!! I am motivated and inspired as I read how you have accomplished these things!!!! Thank you for sharing!!!

[threadbndr]

Love the pictures of the fridge clean out! Impressive.

[The Flying Docto...]

Project Simplify, Week 5:

And our final project was... waaaiiiit for iiiiiiit....... to pick whatever hot spot we wanted!

I was so dazzled by the potential array of choice of hot spots in my home that it took me a few minutes to decide which to go for, but then the completely obvious answer came to me – my work bag. I had accumulated such a lot of random junk in there that I couldn't even close it properly. As you can imagine, it was not fun to carry. We all know how clutter can weigh you down metaphorically – in this case, it was weighing me down literally as well. For weeks, I'd been thinking I must really make time to clear it out.

So, thanks to Tsh, I did exactly that. Here's what it looked like before:



Although I'm not sure that does it full justice. I should probably have also taken a photo of all the contents spread out on the floor to get the full effect, although you might then justifiably have wondered whether it was a work bag or a clown car. Anyway, at the end of a solid hour of sorting and chucking and rehoming, I had a bag that looked more like this:



Again, I'm not sure the photo does that change justice. I spread the bag quite wide there to give a good view of the inside, but, of course, the biggest difference is that now it doesn't have to bulge out like that just from sheer pressure of contents. I can close it properly and carry it easily, and I am no longer in imminent danger of needing urgent chiropractic treatment just from carrying it.


So... five weeks ago I signed up to this, and now I have a tidy closet and underwear drawer, a tidy computer table, a tidy snack cupboard, a sparkling-clean fridge, and now a tidy, easy-to-carry work bag. And, from tidying my computer table, I got a stack of other stuff done. What a great five weeks! Thanks again, Tsh, and best wishes to all others who participated!

[HappyFeet.]

Project Simplify, Week 5:

And our final project was... waaaiiiit for iiiiiiit....... to pick whatever hot spot we wanted!

I was so dazzled by the potential array of choice of hot spots in my home that it took me a few minutes to decide which to go for, but then the completely obvious answer came to me – my work bag. I had accumulated such a lot of random junk in there that I couldn't even close it properly. As you can imagine, it was not fun to carry. We all know how clutter can weigh you down metaphorically – in this case, it was weighing me down literally as well. For weeks, I'd been thinking I must really make time to clear it out.

So, thanks to Tsh, I did exactly that. Here's what it looked like before:



Although I'm not sure that does it full justice. I should probably have also taken a photo of all the contents spread out on the floor to get the full effect, although you might then justifiably have wondered whether it was a work bag or a clown car. Anyway, at the end of a solid hour of sorting and chucking and rehoming, I had a bag that looked more like this:



Again, I'm not sure the photo does that change justice. I spread the bag quite wide there to give a good view of the inside, but, of course, the biggest difference is that now it doesn't have to bulge out like that just from sheer pressure of contents. I can close it properly and carry it easily, and I am no longer in imminent danger of needing urgent chiropractic treatment just from carrying it.


So... five weeks ago I signed up to this, and now I have a tidy closet and underwear drawer, a tidy computer table, a tidy snack cupboard, a sparkling-clean fridge, and now a tidy, easy-to-carry work bag. And, from tidying my computer table, I got a stack of other stuff done. What a great five weeks! Thanks again, Tsh, and best wishes to all others who participated!

For a minute there I wanted to pull a facebook moment and hit the like button! but since I can't do that, I'll just post and say CONGRATULATIONS!!!! (And LIKE LIKE LIKE).