January 11 - Clean Off Your Desk Day

Well, it's as clean as it's going to get.

November 9 - Chaos Never Dies Day

Let's just face it: chaos never really does die. It's time to just accept that fact and go with it.

This morning, I think I broke a tooth. Half a block away, there was a haz-mat spill and the streets were blocked off. We have out-of-town guests arriving next weekend and we do not have a working vacuum. Oh, and there is scum living in my shower that will not die.

But it's cool. It'll all get taken care of.



I hope.

March 22 - International Goof-Off Day

March 22 - Int'l Goof-Off Day
More Info

I was going to clean my apartment today, then I remembered that today is Goof-Off Day. So I flopped on the couch to watch crappy movies for awhile, talked on the phone for about an hour, then the mail came. My mom sent me a package of Easter goodies. I was inspired to have a Peeps Duel. They made it into the microwave but then they chickened out. (Ha! I am so funny.) So I ate them.

I was going to boil some eggs so we could die them later, but that means I would have to go buy eggs, then boil them, then dye them, then clean up afterwards. Not to mention I would have to clean my kitchen in order to make room for this project. I don't feel like doing all of that. Maybe tomorrow. Today I plan on goofing off some more.

Have fun goofing off today!

March 11 - Organize Your Home Office Day Part 2

All done! Here is the "after" picture!

After work today I took about 3 hours to sort through my papers and re-work my file system. I still need a few filing supplies, but my project is essentially complete!

March 11 - Organize Your Home Office Day

March 11 - Organize Your Home Office Day

Five Tips to Organize Your Home Office (My favorite)
Organizing Your Home Office
Ten Tips to Organize Your Home Office

I took this opportunity to clean up my home office. I don't work out of the home, but I have a desk where I conduct the business of my life, my boyfriend's life, and our life together. As you can see from the "Before" picture, I have a bad habit of letting my crap pile up everywhere.

Laziness. I has it.

And, as you can probably guess, this organization project will likely take more than one day. So I got started on Sunday.

Step one: I admitted I am powerless over my clutter – my life has become unmanageable. Ahh. I feel better already.

Step two: Cleaning and pre-organization. (Yes, pre-organization. I have to organize before I can organize. )

I grabbed a kitchen timer, a garbage bag, and two boxes. The garbage bag is for garbage (duh), one box is for items that need to remain in the desk/office area, and the second box is for items that belong in other parts of my apartment. I set the timer for 30 minutes, and hit the start button. When I came across papers that need to stay in the desk area, but need to be filed OR acted on, I just added them to the KEEP pile, to be sorted through again. Yes, this sounds like extra work, but I will get too distracted if I try to micro-manage my papers at this juncture. I really need to see what the top of my desk looks like. I haven’t seen it in a while.

A half hour later – I feel better. Sweatier and dirtier, but better. I still have LOTS to do, but I have made a marked improvement. Here’s what I did:

I started by going through the stuff on the floor. Some things, like craft items and books, I set aside for later organization. I have to focus on organizing my home office. Hobbies and other cleaning tasks can be done later. I was able to weed out some garbage, including some old phone books. I collected the library books in one place, my personal books were stacked on the table (for later organization), and some items that I want to take to work with me are stacked near the front door for me to grab on my way out the door in the morning.

With a few minutes left on the timer, I put away some of the items on my desk that belonged in other rooms. I was able to pretty much clear my desk top. I still must go through everything on the desk shelves, in the desk drawer, and of course, I must go through my pile once again to sort through all the papers.

I found my calendars! (You'll notice from the "before" picture that a 2007 calendar is still up on my wall.) My new wall calendar was a Christmas present from my mother, and it features photographs of Chicago. I heart Chicago.

Christmas decorations are packed up but still out. These need to be stored in the bedroom closet. I can put them away later; they are not really in the way right now. (A few hours later I got around to putting away all the Christmas decorations.)

On Monday, for half an hour between work and dinner, I went in for another go-round of sorting through my crap. Here’s what I got done:

I collected all my current bills and set them aside to pay them tonight. Books that belonged at the desk stayed, books that did not belong were moved elsewhere. Everything in and on the desk was sorted through and garbage was thrown out. I was even able to start putting things back in place.

After dinner, I sat down to pay my current bills. Then, while watching The Godfather, I went through my papers more carefully and tried to sort them into rough piles. I was done by the time the guy finds his horse's head in his bed with him.

On Tuesday's agenda:
Step three: The actual organization begins!Plus, re-organizing the filing system and find homes for things that do not belong in the desk.

I'll be back later tonight or tomorrow to show you the "After" picture!