Clean House but Cluttered Mind?

I've been working on organizing and cleaning my house for most of this year. My paperwork has been disorganized and I have too many possessions for the room we have--making for crowded rooms and messy areas.

As I've been trying to get Christmas decorations out, I've been cleaning and organizing the house. My kitchen and office are still a bit messy but the main rooms are starting to look pretty nice, which is a big relief.

However, I've also been finding that I don't feel that much more organized. You see, I'm still cluttered in my mind. I don't have clear processes to keep my areas clean. I don't have established habits to put things away immediately instead of "waiting" and "coming back later."

I am behind in my work and have a long to do list. It is not just physical clutter which causes problems in our lives. I'm finding that out. Instead it may be that my physical clutter is a symptom of a larger problem--a need to get my mind more in order, and the processes I use to get my work done.

Christmas Lights: One of My Favorite Things

I generally don't like to drive at night but in December that changes. There is nothing better than driving in residential areas at night at seeing the houses decorated with lights. Sometimes you even seen a tree aglow with lights in the window.

There is something about that bright, festive tradition that always pleases me. Even the poorly done attempts at holiday decorations are a bit heartwarming. Of course, some people go all out and end up with beautiful creations (or sometimes monstrously tacky but overwhelming decor).

The video that went around a few years ago with the synchronized house lights or the homes we've all seen with the yard full of moving dolls--a bit excessive perhaps but for a month out of the year, it seems like it is kind of sweet and exciting.

Our lights are up once again. We are one of about 5 houses in our neighborhood that always put light sup (and take them down in January, thank goodness). We don't do anything spectacular but we have the normal line of lights (2 lines of lights actually, one at the gutter in white and one colored below it) at the roof, lights around the porch and entrance, lights at the big front window and one bush in the front with a lightbulb net. It's pretty but nothing like some people will do.

We'll be doing the small tree today. We don't have room for a large tree like my family does every year but I still want to see my ornaments--most of them are from my husband's and my childhoods--and then new ones we got on trips together since we were married. Every ornament has a story, I guess, and so each one is precious to me.

But what I really love is the twinkle of the lights.

Of course, the fact that we always have to clean house before decorating is good too. The house is looking so much better than it did last week. It's amazing what seem cleaning and some holiday decorating can do for the spirit. I feel positively cheerful, almost as twinkly as the lights that I love.

Little Things: How Disorganization Affects the Details Which Make a Difference

I've been rather disorganized the past few months. I was in the middle of a reorganizing session, hit a bad patch with depression (I guess that is the best way to describe it but basically I got done with an enormous project and was burned out, exhausted, and unhappy), and let things get out of hand. I'm just now getting back out from under the mess.

Here's one lesson I've learned from this disorganization--it leads to lots of small mistakes and problems which make things much worse in the long term.

In the past few weeks I've discovered that:
1. My calendar had a note on a particular evening that I had a "6:30 mtg" but no further information. I noticed this the day before the notation and spent the next 30 hours trying to figure out what meeting I was supposed to go to and never discovering it. I have no idea what thing I was supposed to do that night.

2. I put some wrong info on a flyer for one of my groups. I didn't catch an error in a telephone number until it had already gone out to many people (of course, neither did the three other people in my group who approved the flyer before it went out, but it is ultimately my responsibility). I got the info wrong because I copied it from an old flyer they gave me which had the number wrong--but I was too disorganized to bother to track down the other info they had given me to verify my facts.

3. I couldn't find some supplies when I needed them for a project, which kept me from being able to do something I wanted.

4. I misplaced a bill and didn't find it till the day it was due. I don't want to have late bills!

5. I filled out an EDD form incorrectly and now have to wait for a replacement unemployment check after I caught the error and notified them. This delays money I need to cover my bills.

These are 5 ways that being disorganized made my life more difficult. Luckily things are looking better around here. I still have some stacks of papers to go through and a few areas to clear off, but it is much better.

Each of these problems was small--no life shattering errors--but these little things all caused me problems with extra work, time wasted looking for things, and possibly affecting my credit and reputation. These are not small effects. I've heard the phrase "The Devil is in the details" and "God is in the details." Either way, disorganization often causes these details to be messed up, and then there is hell to pay.

State of Mind=State of House, Inbox, and Desktop

I've noticed something about myself. It might be true that correlation does not equal causation but it is an interesting correlation.

Whenever I am feeling particularly bad about myself (stressed, overwhelmed, behind in my work), I also have a messy house, messy email inbox, and messy computer desktop. If I can take care of these three things, life seems to be more under control.

I don't know that the messiness of these three items are causing my feelings or are a symptom. I do know that if I am feeling overwhelmed on a project, I'll leave items saved on my computer desktop instead of filing them away (because "I'm in a middle of a project and it will quicker this way"). I will also be getting a lot of emails and won't be sorting them or deleting them. I will also not have enough time to do house cleaning. So my feelings may cause the messiness but the messiness also adds to the feelings. I can't find things I need in my email box. I find my computer files to be unorganized. I can't find the paperwork I need for a project or forget to do something because I lost a note.

Either way, I think there are a few solutions:

1. I need to recognize the symptoms right away and take steps to remedy it. If my email or desktop is getting cluttered, I need to spend a little time straightening it out instead of goofing off on the internet. Same with house cleaning.

2. When I feel too rushed for time to do simple tasks, I need to recognize that I am only making things worse for myself. Often I do have the time, but I'm making excuses for myself (and being a bit lazy).

3. I have plans to fix things when I wake up each morning but then I get caught up in various projects and don't get to it (all of last week was like this) so I need to do more and think about it less. Instead of planning to straighten up, I should just designate an hour each morning and do it.

My state of mind is cluttered right now, I'd say. Certainly my house, inbox, and desktop are cluttered. The only way one is going to be free is if the others are.

Falling Behind: The Cycle Begins Again

I'm falling behind in my work. That's right, my system is breaking down yet again. My house is messy, my inbox full, my to do list overflowing, and my stress level is high.

How did I get that way? I'm not really sure. This seems to happen in a cycle pretty often.

Here are some factors which tend to lead me back:

1. Something unexpected happens: This time it was our main computer. It died. The worst part of this is we didn't have our data properly backed up. I don't know how much we lost but it worries me. The hard drive has been replaced and we have the computer back but the data may be lost forever. (Everyone, back up your data now! You'll only regret data which isn't backed up!)

2. I get busy: I have spent the past few days working for one of my volunteer groups. I have taken on too much for them, I think, and it has become difficult to keep up.

3. I took a break: Because we had a very busy weekend volunteering, I took a break on Monday. This left me with too much to do on Tues and Wed and a messy house from the stuff we had out over the weekend which has not been put back. I tell myself that I deserve a break (like on Monday) but do I deserve the guilt I feel when I look around at this mess?


I think the reason why I keep coming back to this state of disorganization and stress is because I don't really have a clear system in place yet. I have been trying to establish a routine and some organization but it isn't there yet. I have been cleaning and organizing in order to establish the system but because there is no system, I have trouble finishing the organizing before things get out of control again.

I know that under this current layer of stuff, I have the beginnings of a more organized life but I don't want it to be under layers of stuff! I need to be able to maintain a more clutter-free existence. I also need to be able to handle the volunteering I have and still have time for job applications, novel writing, etc. Right now I don't feel like I have time for these things and that is not the way this is supposed to work.

I'm going to spend today trying to get caught up again and then Friday I'm going to work on my system. If I could get a good system of planning and organizing down and stick with it, maybe I could have better control over my life. That's what I've been working towards for all of these months. I hope that I am closer to it today.

Donating Your Stuff: My Experiences with Organizing

I've spent the past year or so going through my closets and knickknacks to try to get rid of my excess stuff. This is particularly true during the last month when we've been going through all of our stuff, in the garage, boxes, closets, and drawers.

We generally sort things into three piles. There is the trash can full of stuff (or recycling since we have a lot of files which I am trying to purge). There is the sale pile. We try to sell things on eBay or other places (although we've had little luck with that in the past year or so as eBay as been an increasingly poor source for selling). The third and largest pile is donate.

Donation is a great way to get rid of still usable stuff (clothes, blankets, knickknacks, non-valuable books, etc.

I move the donation stacks out to a location out of the way--on a table on our enclosed patio this time. I then put the items in bags and make a list of things by categories. For instance, my current stack includes 5 sweaters, 15 tshirts, 3 jeans, 2 jackets, 1 blanket, 2 board games (1 unused), etc. I then decide where I am going to donate the stuff.

There are a lot of choices, from the typical Goodwill, Amvets, or other local charity thrift shop to specific charities which need actual items (children's hospitals or women's shelters sometimes want gently used toys or clothes or books). It is a great time to support a cause you care about. It can be more work, of course, to figure out that you want to support your local animal shelter, call them to find out if they want your blankets and towels (they often do), and then get the stuff to them. On the other hand, it can be very rewarding to know that your unwanted items are helping a cause you care about in your community.

When you donate your stuff, be sure to record what you donated. If they offer you a receipt, take it. Remember that it can be useful come tax time. I have a folder for receipts for taxes and that's where mine goes.

There are websites where you can value your stuff for tax purposes. Remember that you can't charge the same as a new price. Some tax programs will have a "value this" feature that will help you set a fair price for the items. Make sure you kept enough info on your list to figure out the pricing.

Take a look at:

http://www.sdgoodwill.org/donation_values.shtml
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p561/ar02.html#d0e545

Obsessions and Cataloging

One side project which has come out of my current organizing project was an unexpected one.

My husband and I are big readers and book collectors. We have many bookcases--many of them doubleshelved (with books behind the row of books you can see). We also have books in boxes in the garage and closet because we've run out of room.

My husband decided that cataloging our books would be useful. He is using LibraryThing and is adding our books to this online database system. So far he has about 1,500 books listed but is probably only 33% of the way through our books. He's been doing this for about 4 days now.

It's made me think about obsessions. We have an obsession for buying books. We'd talked about cutting back and avoiding going to the bookstore because I have three shelves of books in my "to read" section. I don't need new books if I have that many to read. Yet a couple of days ago my husband says, "Let's go to the bookstore" and even though we had just talked about how we wouldn't do that, we did it anyways. We bought 5 books while we were there.

My husband is getting pretty obsessive with the cataloging also. He's spending all day at it, pretty much stopping only for email and meals.

I think that collectors and people who are addicted to various substances are probably closely connected. There is probably something in the brain related to addiction which is also present in the brains of collectors. It is like an addiction, an obsession. It can also ruin some people's lives. Collecting and hoarding aren't that far apart, when you get right down to it. It's just that hoarding is often stuff which has little monetary value, isn't maintained or cleaned and is getting in the way of normal life. A collector will generally try to maintain the item and keep things clean, and a collection often will be seen to have value (although not everyone will agree on that part, as there are some weird collections out there), and it hopefully doesn't get in the way of life.

On the other hand, collecting, like we collect, does get in the way of life. We have a very different life because of our collections. We have less cash and less space. We also have less time because our collections take time and work. Books are just one of our collections, also, so we truly have an addictive personality. Our house is overrun with stuff. It's amazing to think of sometimes. People often sing the Addams Family theme song when they visit ("their house is a museum, when people come to see them...").

I don't want to go the opposite direction. I never understand the people who brag about minimalism and not owning things. I find many of the pictures of minimalist modern homes to be cold and impersonal. I may read Unclutterer but that doesn't mean that I'm interested in getting rid of our collections. People who talk about getting rid of books and only using the library do not understand our lives. Many of our books could not be found in our local library. Some of these editions are beautiful and scarce. They are a joy to look at, not just a reading copy paperback of the text.

When I look around, I see a crowded house, it is true. But I also see a house where everything has a story to tell. The items have history and meaning.

It's true that some parts of collecting worry me; addictions are not a good thing. Collecting is a borderline addiction so we have to be careful and not cross that line. However, we are also defined by our collections, and for the most part, I like it that way.

Heatwaves and Lethargy

It's that time of year. It's hot, darned hot, across much of the U.S. In my own area of Southern California we are just starting our hot weather which may get worse by October. The average temp is 88 F during the afternoon.

I've never liked hot weather. There are really only so many clothes you can take off. When it is cold, you can fix that with extra clothing and blankets, but no matter how much I strip down to the bare essentials, it is still too hot in our house since we don't have air conditioning.

The main problem with this heat is that it tends to encourage procrastination. You feel tired and unwilling to do anything strenuous. If you stray too far from the fan, you feel miserable.

Every year I face the same problem in my home. It's too darned hot to want to work.

Here's what I am going to do. If you are in a hot place, I recommend you do it too.

1. I've got lots of water cooling in the frig. I have to remember to drink more water.

2. I bought a ton of great fruit at the store. Cool grapes and other fruits out of the frig help a lot in this heat.

3. I have fans in the major rooms. Air circulation is key.

4. I plan more physical activities for the mornings when it is not as hot. Computer work and less physical activities are better for the afternoon and early evening when it is warmest.

5. I acknowledge the heat and its power on me but balance it with a reminder of my goals and why they matter. I keep working but I take plenty of water breaks and stay within reach of the fan.

Buying Two: The Wastefulness of Clutter

Since we were nearly done with our big cleaning project, we decided to go ahead and expand our reach a little by pulling out things from our dreaded "Storage Closet." We have turned one of our closets into long-term storage and it is filled with boxes.

I was a little upset when I pulled out a box with a collectible and said, but we already have this in the other room. Sure enough, we had bought the same collectible twice. One we put away in storage and one we put on display.

That's the problem with having too much stuff. The stuff that is put away may be forgotten and we'll buy it all over again.

We don't have that sort of money to waste.

We'll try selling it on eBay but we may not make the money back since people can still buy it new. We'll almost certainly end up losing money.

It's maddening.

It's also why we started this project.

Sometimes when you get too much stuff, you end up not remembering stuff that you have. It's been nice to pull stuff out and it is almost like it is new to me.

It's also be rather discouraging. I shouldn't be surprised to find we own something.

If you are like me and you have a lot of stuff stored deep in closets or boxes (or worse, storage containers), I highly recommend going through this stuff from time to time. Decide what you really need to keep, and keep a better inventory of the stuff you have.

This will keep you from wasting your money and rebuying an item and also make it easier for you to find when you need it.

I'd also suggest you get rid of a lot of stuff. However, since this is the part which I have the most difficulty with, I will understand if this is a struggle. It certainly is in this household.

Progress Made: Sticking To It Till the End

I'm 90% through my sorting papers project which started about three weeks ago. The first week involved pulling out everything in the office, kitchen, dining room, and living room which didn't have a proper home or was otherwise disordered. Then I stacked everything by category. I've been sorting through categories, recycling a lot of paper and then finding homes for those papers I still need.

I'm down to just a few small sections now and am almost done. My house looks basically back to normal.

It would be easy to call it quits right now and call it a job well done, but I'm not going to do it. The whole point of this procedure was to improve things, not to bring them back to a status quo.

I think this is a temptation in many projects--to end when things are "good enough." We aim for higher but when the real work begins it can seem like finishing at 90% is a good deal. The pain that the last little bit of work brings often doesn't seem worth the effort. That's a huge mistake.

It is the last bit of effort which takes a project over the top--and pushes it into the really useful and extraordinary. I think we get too used to accepting the Pareto Principle and saying that 80% of the success comes from 20% of the effort and using this as an excuse to say that we don't need to put in the last bit of effort because we'll get diminishing returns.

That last 20% of effort is really where most of the success comes from. The Pareto principle is about making ourselves more efficient but it should not be an excuse, as it too often seems to be, to give up when 80% done. "Good enough" is not great.

I have too many unfinished/incomplete projects around my house to believe that 80% done will be satisfactory. That's why I will push to figure out that last bit of my current project. If I am right, it will make a big difference in how I see my home and how I use my papers.

Sticking to a project right through the end, now matter the time or difficulty, is the true sign of a person who will succeed.

Small Victories Upon Small Victories

We tend to want big victories. We set big goals and celebrate big milestones.

I think this can be a mistake. There are plenty of small victories which deserve recognition.

For instance, I've been organizing my house for two weeks now. The first few days were triage. We pulled all of the chaos out into the open and we set up a triage system where we gathered it into piles by type. We needed to see just how bad each category of paper was--for instance each of my groups which I volunteer with got its own pile. Some of these were quite huge, others small. None of these papers had a good home so things had been out of control for awhile. As I've stated at least twice in the past two weeks, the mess this system caused was extensive. We had stacks of papers everywhere where before some of it hadn't looked as bad; now it looked horrible. It felt like I had made things worse.

For the past two days, I've been working hard on various stacks, and I'm celebrating a small victory--the reduction of the piles! There are 40% fewer piles than a few days ago.

I'm not done, of course, but it seemed important to me to recognize my progress.

Too often, I think, people only look at the failure side of things. I had been thinking how bad the house looked right now. I am still less than half way finished. That sounded awful to me. Then I realized. I did 4.5 stacks yesterday. When you compare where I was when I started, I'm about 40% finished sorting and finding homes for what we are keeping (we are recycling a lot of paper--the blue can was full when it went out this morning!).

I'm not suggesting that, as a society, we need to go down the path that leads to celebrating every little victory. I think some places have gone too far, with huge parties for kindergarten graduations, trophies for participation instead of winning, and "everybody is a winner" attitudes. I'm not suggesting that at all. Don't celebrate false victories, but it can be important to acknowledge what we have done. It is not a failure to be 40% done with my organizing project. As long as I don't leave it at this stage, that is a great milestone I can be proud to reach. It can encourage me to keep going, knowing that I am getting there (slowly, yes, but getting there).

Sometimes it is important to celebrate the intermediate steps to victory in order to keep morale up enough to reach the end goal. If anything less than total victory is the only thing worthy of celebrating, we can too often feel depressed on the journey--feeling like a failure all the way until we reach the end. The journey should be as uplifting as the success at the end or the journey won't be worth doing.

Of Stuffy Noses and Piles of Papers

Some days it is harder to be motivated than others. The past few days have been slow for me. I caught a cold. It is a mild one, to be sure, but it is slowing me down. Also, I've spent two weeks with stacks of papers everywhere and don't feel like I've made a lot of progress. If you go long enough without feeling like real progress is made, it is easy to become discouraged, throw your hands up, and say it will never get better. This attitude has been feeling tempting lately.

We all face it in our projects. There comes a point in time where we either have to forge ahead (pushing a little harder to do the work) or we can give up. This is the make or break moment for a project. If we persevere we get the reward. If we give up, we have a half started project that falls apart.

Most projects start off with good intentions and glorious dreams of success which get us through the beginning stages of the work. It is during the actual hard work that reality sets in. This will be hard. It will be tedious. It isn't obvious that we will succeed. It is taking longer than we realized.

This is the point when it is easy to give up. This is the point I have reached with my house organizing project.

The good news is, if one can push past this point, success lies on the other side.

Despite the overwhelming amount of paperwork still to go through and a stuffy head, I'm going to continue pushing forward today and see if I can make it through to the other side.

Things Get Worse...Before They Get Better

One of the worse parts of any organizing project is how things will often seem messier and more out of control while you are in the midst of a project.

Earlier this week I looked around this house in disgust. I had pulled out all of my loose paperwork, every unsorted project, every loose end in my life and piled them into two rooms. I then spent the next two days tearing apart parts of the garage to see what other messes I have.

Naturally this made things much worse than they had been before I started. End of the week and I have boxes and boxes stacked in my kitchen.

It is demoralizing, really.

The thing I have to remember is that I AM actually making progress. If I can keep going, instead of giving up because of the chaos caused by the process, I will eventually dig myself out of this mess and have something resembling an organized home.

I am probably not the first person who, faced with the mess this process causes, felt like giving up. It doesn't seem worth the hassle.

It is, though, and that's the thought I'm hanging onto right now.

The thing to remember when organizing a home is why you are doing it in the first place. I have to hold onto the goal despite the obstacles and with just a few more days of work, I will have more space and a cleaner place.

Always Behind? What to do when your To Do list is never completed.

Do you have trouble completing all of your tasks? Do you make long lists of activities which must be done right away and then find yourself perpetually behind on your tasks? Are you putting off important but non-urgent tasks because you have other less important but more urgent tasks constantly on your list?

I know that all of that describes my life lately. I have a number of organizing tasks I have begun (and a longer list of things waiting) and I find myself disappointed at how slow I have been to get these out of my way so I can begin working on my novel.

After my big event, I needed to get my house reorganized (the event burdened us with a bunch of boxes to store and finding room in our house can be difficult--meaning a number of rooms need to be reorganized and sorted so the new stuff can be put away for storage). I also pulled out stuff from my office (so I could begin cleaning it) which left a bunch of unsorted papers in the dining room. I also am behind on laundry, have a large stack of clothes needing sewing (buttons and other small issues), and a garage which needs a major overhaul as we can hardly walk into it anymore thanks to new boxes. In the meantime, we've had some sort of small moth infestation get into our kitchen by unknown means so I'm disgusted by this and need to clean the place out (and possibly bug bomb the house).

After just over two weeks, my list is just getting longer and the house more messy (I look around the living room and a house that was quite clean 4 weeks ago now has every surface covered with crap).

It is time to figure out what to do when my to do list gets out of control.

1. Sometimes this happens because I overestimated how much I could get done in a short amount of time. I made too long of a list and then expected to get it all done. Dialing back my expectations can be useful here.

2. Keep on track. Part of my problem is that I started projects while still working on others. When I knew I had a problem with the new boxes, I shouldn't have added to the mess by digging out the paperwork from the office. The office had waited this long, it could have waited until I had a better handle on other tasks.

3. Prioritize. I need to figure out the most important tasks to get me back on track and stick to these. I should not allow myself to feel guilty for delaying less important tasks until later.

4. Don't over commit. My list was simply too long for the amount of time I gave myself. And I had promised myself I would be through with it so that I could start my novel. I took on too much. This is the other side of the 1st point. I had too long a list for too short of a time.

5. Give yourself some wiggle room. As you do a project, you may find other issues. I didn't expect the moths in the kitchen. I had no idea that they would suddenly appear two nights ago. I just know that every evening I go into the kitchen and there are a bunch of small moths. It means I need to do a lot of organizing and cleaning and maybe go to the trouble of bug bombing the house to get rid of them. My list was too crowded to give me room to add this unexpected extra.

Basically, it boils down to don't try to do too much in too little of a time. Choose your battles wisely, give yourself time, and then add new tasks later.

My list tip I am considering: do the important but not urgent task of writing the novel NOW and not wait until I'm finished with these tasks. My problem before was that the novel was always "next." As in, I'll do that next, after I finish this organizing project. The problem is that there always seems to be another project to push it off. I need to find at least small amounts of time to do my writing, in between these much needed organizational projects.

Otherwise, my to do list will be an never ending source of procrastination on the one item that I say is most important to me. That doesn't make any sense at all, when you think about it.

Cleaning Out Old Decisions

I'm cleaning my closet out today. It is hard to part with clothing. Today I am getting rid of a beautiful sequined top I bought for my 10th reunion (1997) which I think I wore to special events twice. It doesn't fit me anymore, just like its beautiful flowing black skirt. I've had these in the back of my closet for ages and they survived several closet purgings because I told myself that I'd wear them again someday.

The same goes for three blazers I used to wear a lot in the early 90s. They are good quality and very practical in design. While they still fit, mostly, they are old and don't button closed (a little tight in the waist, but I never buttoned them anyways so I kept them for years, seldom wearing them).

I also found some clothes which I had bought recently but found that I didn't like that much. Some pulled funny (material issues) or just didn't suit me as well as I thought in the store. Because it is hard to admit that I'd made a mistake in buying these (and wasting money on things I'm not wearing), I had a hard time putting them on the donate stack as well.

However, that is what I've been doing. I have 8 items on the donate stack so far and will be adding more soon. The bad decisions of buying clothes that don't suit me are in the past. No use burdening my present self with those mistakes. The beautiful clothes of past days are not part of my future and I need to accept that. How will I have room for the beautiful clothes of my present and future self if I don't get rid of the old clothes from my past?

These are hard lessons to learn. I'm taking small steps by going through my closet. I'm also continuing my office clean out project.

It's hard to get rid of things sometimes because of what the things represent: old memories I want to keep, a sense that this thing will be useful in the future, or a decision which I don't want to admit was wrong. I think we all have this habit of investing our things with these extra invisible burdens. What I need to remember is that I will still have the memory (and, indeed, a picture) of my 10th reunion without having the dress I wore that night. Even if I lose some weight, I don't have very many events where I could wear that sort of dress, so I need to let it go. I can't hang onto it on the hypothetical hope that sometime it will both fit me and be suitable for an event (at the same time). The same goes for the other clothes and for many things in my office. I need room for my future and for that I need to let go of some of the less useful remnants of my past.

It is sort of like I was saying on Wed's post--I'm starting over on my quest. Both mentally and in some of my possessions, I have to let go of my past mistakes or past memories so that I can move forward.

Crunch Time

I'm just days away from a big event. As is often the case when I'm really busy with one event, other things have gotten rather chaotic.

The house is a mess. There are dishes in the sink. Other projects are on hold. One of my other groups has a meeting tonight I might skip. Life can get out of control and "put on hold" when a big event is coming up.

I don't like it. It is actually harder to plan for an event when the house is chaotic. I forgot to take something with me to a meeting yesterday because the table was covered with crap and I didn't see the thing I was supposed to take.

Disorganization and the chaos which comes from it--they are things I constantly struggle with and constantly say I will deal with and fix. So far I've never gotten a real hold on it. I've temporarily improved things but the fixes are never permanent.

When "Crunch Time" comes up, things get even worse and show me how much I need to get organized and have a system for dealing with things. If it was routine to put things away (indeed, too many things don't have a place to be, so they can't be put away), then it would be harder for things to descend to this level of mess.

As usual, I'm going to promise myself to get organized--next week. We'll see. It would be nice if this was one time I actually managed it and not just temporarily.

Inspiration: Getting It and Keeping It

It can be hard to find inspiration, whether you are doing some writing (I'm working on my first novel) or some other project (from house organizing to graphic design work--both of which I've been doing a lot lately).

I even had a hard time getting inspiration to write this post. I started it on Wed and am very late posting it on Fri because I could not figure out all that I wanted to say. I was having inspiration problems on a post about inspiration. Irony!

To get inspiration, here are some techniques I use:

1. Read. I find that if I browse my favorite blogs or sites, I will often find things which excite me or make me think about what I am working on in a new way.

Some of my favorite blogs:
Unclutterer
Lifehacker
Happiness Project
1000 Awesome Things
Cake Wrecks

For comics, I like:
2d Goggles (adventures of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace)
Digger (if you haven't seen it, start from the beginning and be enthralled)
Girl Genius (long, long comic but great from the start, especially if you enjoy steampunk)
Basic Instructions
XKCD
The Meek (although I'm not sure where it is going, I like it so far)

Glance through Cafe Press designs (here are two good examples from today's browsing:
Plays with Robots
Freethinker


2. Enjoy the natural world:
Go outside for a walk. Look out your window. Go to the park. Do something to get you out of your normal indoor surroundings.

3. Daydream:
It may seem counter intuitive but it can be a productive thing--as long as I set a limit to it and get to work afterwards. :)

4. Brainstorm:
That's right. If I am having difficult writing, I just write a whole bunch.

5. Play the right music:
If I am doing something active, like organizing, then my favorite 80s rock songs. If it is a mental exercise, then classical music or my section of the ipod labelled Favorite Instrumental (movie themes and other cool stuff).

Keeping inspiration can be a bit harder. Too often it is hard to stick with a project, especially a big one.

I try to do the following to stick with things:

1. Stop for a break only when I have something exciting to finish (be in the middle of a good part--not a tough part).

2. When writing, finish mid sentence or paragraph, not at the end of a chapter.

3. When organizing, set the work on the bed when it is in mid-progress so that I have to return to it before I go to sleep or be forced to move it when it is half done.

4. Promise myself a reward for getting more done.

5. Set a timer and just promise myself another 15 minutes or half hour on the project. This works if I am struggling because by 15 minutes, I may be so involved again, I decide to continue. I would have quit 15 minutes ago, but I pushed through and now I don't want to stop!

Do you have any tips for getting and keeping inspiration?

Cleaning House and other Hard Things

One of the things on my to do list was cleaning the office. This may not sound like much to people who keep their rooms neat and tidy by default. The problem is really that my "office" has become the room equivalent of a junk drawer.

When company was coming over we'd pick up all the stuff that was out and shove it in the office and close the door. Something doesn't quite suit the decor of the living room? Shove it in the office. Don't have room for this? Shove it in the office. Just got back from a trip and have a bag you haven't unpacked but have company coming over soon? Shove it in the office.

When we first moved into this house 11 years ago, the office had three filing cabinets and one bookcase in it. The desk moved in shortly thereafter plus a rocking chair. It was a mostly empty room. However, my husband and I are avid readers and obsessive collectors. Also we are both researchers so paperwork/filing can get quite complex. More and more stuff moved into the office. It now has 6 bookcases, 4 filing cabinets, one table, one steamer trunk, one rocking chair, one desk and chair, a quilt rack, a shelving unit of boxes, three filing carts, and a microfilm machine. All of this "fits" into a 10x10 room.

Add to this the stuff we've shoved into the room and you have piles on the floor everywhere so that you can't walk around the table and trunk in the middle of the room to get to other parts of the room.

I've tried cleaning it before but every time I get close to finishing, something happens and more stuff gets shoved in there.

So here I am again, with a huge office cleanup facing me today. I'm going to pull everything on the floor out of the office (leaving behind the furniture and anything that is "in its place." Then I will start finding places for this stuff. I will need to do more than that to get the room figured out but first I just have to be able to walk around the room. It seems like a place to start.

It is always hard to start a project that seems overwhelming, especially one that you have tried to do several times but always ended up as a failure.

I'm going to try to analyze what went wrong the last times I tried this project as I clean out the room today and see what I can change about how we relate to this room. It's the only chance I have of making real progress.

Real progress--that's what I'm looking for, starting today!