Challenge Step #5

CRUNCH TIME!

Yup, only a few days in the month left! I know that I am not where I wanted to be right now, BUT my goal was to purge the paper monster and that has been done. Now, I need to focus on taming that paper monster! Which, frankly, might take another month at the rate I’m going. The deep organization part is gonna have to wait for a while, I think.

So, we need to focus on the big area that I know we have all avoided up until now. THE DESK. Even if it’s not a real “desk” for you, it’ll be the spot where you’ve been piling stuff as you’ve been cleaning and purging. That normal to-do mountain has bred like a bunch of bunnies, hasn’t it?

So, today’s challenge is to CLEAR OFF THE DESK. And it’s not allowed to be dumped in any piles anywhere anymore. DEAL WITH IT. Piece by piece if you have to. Clear off the desk until it’s empty, then wipe and dust it down. Who knows when it will be this clean again, right?

My update:
I did get started on this step yesterday, and I’ve been trying to work on this when I had mini breaks during worktime. So, I’ve been able to make some progress, and finally yesterday it finally started to look like I was getting real results. I moved my “hot files” basket off the corner of my desk onto the bookshelf behind me (after I cleaned it out, of course). That alone has made my office and desk “feel” better – my view is no longer obstructed by a big mass of files, AND the basket itself is cleaned out and neat.

I still have my “deal with this NOW” folder, and I’ve got it hanging in my organizer on the wall. Which means it really can’t hold that much – so hopefully that will help me keep it from getting too bogged down.

But I really have a LONG WAY TO GO. Need to deal with the piles on my desk, another pile of papers that need to be re-filed in a binder, little weird things (like checking some gift cards to see if they have anything left on them) that are randomly covering my desk. I’m trying to get through it all as soon as possible.

Challenge Step #4
It’s time to file that to-be-filed mountain. Or, if it’s anything like my house, it’s Mount Vesuvius. Really – the pile seems to fall over and explode anytime I walk by. And I really need that corner of my office back. So, it’s time to kill that monster.

Remember to sort, purge, shred, or archive through that pile as you go. I found QUITE a bit, that I’ve lost “attachment” to, and could purge, while I was walking through this step. And, if you find things that need to go in your “Deal with” pile, put on your desk AND DEAL WITH IT ASAP. Don’t let it just sit there. (But also don’t spend a million years doing it, we don’t have much more time this month!

My Update:

I was trying to do this step early, and boy did I get bogged down in my own mess!

I shredded a large pile of paper yesterday (have found more though, of course.) Plus, I taught my youngest how to put things in the shredder while I tore the staples out of everything!

I have another laundry basket of things to go downstairs in my “archive files”, I’ve been tossing things like a madwoman, I’ve been making files and tossing things, and of course I’ve got huge mess of stuff on my desk to deal with. I haven’t finished filing things away, sadly. Since I’ve been making that to-be-filed pile since last May at least, it’s kind of terrible. But I have at least cleared most of the office floor (which compared to yesterday is a miracle), and you can actually walk through it now. I hope to finish the rest of all this nonsense today, if my work time this afternoon permits!

Have I lost you guys already? Right now I’m in the midst of purging all my scrapbook paper. And have totally trashed my office in the process (which is why I never started this project, LOL.) I did purge over half of a bin, though!

I’m in the midst of all three of these projects, and hope to get a bit more caught up with all of them today. Two (the file cabinet archive and putting up the bulletin board in the playroom) are fairly easy projects to complete- but this scrapbooking paper project might take up more time.

Challenge Step #3

Purge Your Files
Time to start the shredding party!!

Get a box or laundry basket, or something and start going through your file cabinet bit by bit and pull all the things you’d like to get rid of. Anything that needs to be shredded goes into the box or basket, everything else that doesn’t can go straight to your garbage bag.

(Little tip – before shredding any financial documents – and only doing that by speaking to your financial adviser – you might want to scan those and at least have an electronic copy for just in case emergencies. If you need to do that, I’d suggest starting a stack for that as well.)

Put your shredder and your pile of stuff in the middle of the living room, and task someone in your family with it. Unless you need to catch up on weeks of TV DVR’d items tonight or something! Otherwise, delegate, delegate, delegate!!!!!!

I’m BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, gals, that it took so long. This week was pretty intensive work wise with writing projects. Got most of that out of the way so I’m going to start throwing assignments back up here, as quickly as I can. I really want to be done with all this paper purging before the end of the month. I’m so sick of it all!

Challenge Step #2

A. Put Some New Systems in Place
Okay, my reasoning behind this is: you can purge all you want, but if you don’t start planning on how to deal with things as you clean them out, then it’s really going to do you very little good long-term.

So, look at your previous list. What is ONE THING you can set up/put in place RIGHT NOW, that would make one area easier to deal with? Also, after you right your idea down, mark down what parts of your list connect to that system idea? (see what I did below, it makes more sense when you see it.)

Okay, now that you have that system idea down? Yeah, go make up another one! No really. Don’t just stop at one good idea, do two!

B. Purge Active to Archived
Now, we’re going to do this step to make some ROOM! What papers/files/etc do you have and need to keep, but don’t NEED on a regular basis? I just recently bought a cheap file cabinet at the thrift store to create some “archived files” for myself. Why? I have no more room in my file cabinets in my office, for things I use on a regular basis – that’s part of my paper problem! So, this assignment is to go through your files and move things over to some “archived place” where they will be safe, but out of your way.

If you already have tons of files in storage somewhere and have this “archive” already created, then you need to go through it and review. Is there stuff you can purge out now? (Don’t toss without asking someone to confirm it’s okay to toss- like financial/business records, for example.)

The things I’m thinking about are old tax returns, we have medical records, documents from when we bought the house, old school records, etc etc. Things like that. You need them, but you don’t NEED them.

Create a safe place for those files somewhere and put them away. NOW.

MY OWN ANSWERS

A-1. I am going to put my extra bulletin boards on the wall in the playroom, and the girls can hang whatever artwork, etc up there. BUT, that is the ONLY PLACE they can put the artwork up, and when it gets full, they will have to clean it out to make room for more. (dealing with their mess and trying to teach them to stay organized, getting kids, involved)

A-2. I want to reorganize my scrapbooking paper. I want to purge all the “pieces.” -I have an entire bin of have used pieces, “because I might need them/ it’s wasteful.” Yeah. Once they go in that bin, I never look at it again. So I want to clean out that bin and save what I can sell at the scrapbooking consignment sale in May, put aside what can be used for titles on pages I’ve already done (NOT saving just in case for future) and GET RID of everything thing else. And no more saving “just in case.” I’ll save it for doing the titles or whatnot, but that’s it. When I’m done with it, it can be tossed from now on. It’s just too much.

Also, I want to go through my massive paper stash, and get it organized, but also purge what I know I will really never use. I’m not living overseas now, I can get scrapbooking stuff as I need to. No need to hoard anymore. So, whatever I can, will go into the scrapbooking consignment sale pile.

My goal with the scrapbooking paper purge, is to get my stash in a usable, organized order, so I can actually see what I have and USE IT UP. (scrapbooking stuff, plus since everything is in my office/classroom area, this will help to clean up/free up some space there.)

B. Thankfully, I’ve been purging this stuff quite well, it’s just building up. So I’m going to go through and pull out things that can go in the file cabinet downstairs, and then ask hubby to take them down and put them away. And also, since it’s a really big file cabinet, I will offer the extra drawer to hubby – maybe he will clean out some of his junk at his desk and put it there? (His desk is in the living room.) (archive files, cleaning out office space to file there, getting hubby involved in the action.)