My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 3

OK, so, again, what we're looking at doesn't appear so dramatic in terms of "Before" and "After"; but the ability to get a clear and detailed shot of the same space is a testament to the importance of light in the space! Also, to give you a sense of scale, the mound of papers in the "Before" photo is approximately 16" high and 42" long (not counting that basket.) Progress was made rather quickly because of something I had not anticipated: momentum. After Week 2's efforts, I was really eager to start on Week 3! I wasn't even finished (and am still not) with the list of things to do from week 2; but I found myself itching to tackle the next segment of my home office. Throughout the week, I was ferreting through the floor stacks, recycling, shredding, throwing things away and, shoring up the stacks as they threatened to slide into cleared areas. And that's the other thing: no shoving things back into a previously cleared space. Once it's cleared, it needs to stay that way! I caught myself stacking more books onto the floor next to the shelves before I realized that if I kept doing that, I was creating my own Sisyphean hell :-/

So what were some of the Found Objects this week?

Another Copy of Animal Farm (by George Orwell; illustrated by Ralph Steadman): Oy, I just bought a copy of this a couple of weeks ago! I saw it in the window of an independent bookshop and I knew I had to have it! What I didn't realize was that I already had a copy. And that's the thing: I don't even know what I have any more. That said, if I had wanted to get to the copy that I had first bought, I couldn't have because it was "lost" in all the chaos. I'm keeping both copies as a reminder of my folly and a reminder against impulse purchasing. There are a lot of books on those shelves and most are catalogued on goodreads; but when I have cleared the room, a major reorganization of those books is in order.

Jumbo Office Clips: Five years ago, I bought a box of twelve jumbo office clips. Apparently they breed! I found over fifty! What this really means is that when I was taking work home, the office clips were somehow getting left behind when the work went back to the office. I was not intending to steal office supplies; but technically, that's what I was doing. This week I returned all of them (minus twelve.) I'm marking the remaining twelve with a spot of nail polish so I can more easily identify what is mine and what is not!

Christmas Decorations: From 2010. Three bins as a matter of fact. This past Christmas, we couldn't figure out where some of our Christmas decorations went, including a creche! There were here under a mound of stuff. These will go into a storage unit that's not my Mom Cave.

Old envelopes and stamps: When I was maybe eight-years old, I was fascinated by a series of animal stickers which the issuing company called stamps. I told my Mom that I wanted to collect stamps and she thought that I was interested in philatelic pursuits. My godfather, a hardcore stamp collector was eager to encourage me as well. I never screwed up the courage to tell them I wasn't really interested in stamp collecting, so for many years the misunderstanding stood. As a result, I actually have a rather nice collection of stamps and first day covers; but what I also have that's not so nice is a habit of saving envelopes and canceled stamps even though I don't collect anymore. All the envelopes and canceled stamps that I was "saving" for the past five years either got put in the recycling bin or thrown away. Its' amazing how much space all these bits of paper took up!

Next week, we'll look at some other paper demons....

See Also:

Epiphanies 2011 ("MyFuture Self")

My Future Self: Home Office Excavation (wherein I talk about the impact of clutter)

My Future Self: Home Excavation: Week 2 (wherein I talk about the effect of light and, planning)