Desk tidier after 15 minutes paring the clutter

Remember this? This is my desk last Friday after the first fifteen-minute clutter clearing session. Beaucoup improvement, but not where I want it yet, which is clutter free and dustable.

That stack of papers on my desk includes financial documents each requiring time and attention, and I didn’t get to all of them, but I stopped cold at the fifth one. I had two days left to pay a bill or risk penalties and extra interest. I wrote the check, stamped the envelope and ran the thing down to the corner mailbox. Whew! Saved myself some hard-earned cash.

How I feel: Grateful to have discovered that bill and sent it off in time. I’ve cost myself more money over the years simply by forgetting to take care of bills in a timely way. Do you do that occasionally?

Strategy update: Take an extra minute to shuffle through a recent pile in case there’s something critical that needs addressing. If the pile is humongous, like some I have lying about, revert to handling one document at a time and take my lumps.

Next: Continue to sort and respond to the remaining papers in the pile.

I’m downright amazed at the amount of clutter that disappeared in our house over the weekend. We tamed half a dozen bushels of laundry, washed and kept up with the dishes, cooked and ate every meal at home, put away craft projects for the week, cleared empty packing boxes from the hall and dirty socks from all the places I tend to slip them off and forget about them.

You can’t tell we did all that, looking at the surface most places in the house, but one complete success is the meditation altar, which looked like this on January 1.

Former meditation altar 01-01-09

Tonight, the altar is available again for clearing the mind, making peace, sitting serene.

Serene meditation space

All this, after one fifteen minute clutter clearing session on Friday. We didn’t set out to clear more clutter this weekend. We seemed independently energized, motivated.

This is the power of setting intention.

The good kind: Inspired by my commitment to zap household clutter for good in 2009, my dear partner (DP) completely eliminated one of the bulging bags of mail and papers in hall closet #1 today. As with my tiny bit of desk clearing yesterday, I feel buoyant every time I open that closet door. Just one sack gone makes a difference.

Although my fifteen-minute-a-day clutter clearing commitment is for the five business days of the week only, I too was on a roll today and, sans timer, dumped moldy refrigerated goods, emptied all the trash baskets, and carted two loads of laundry down to the basement and back to the third floor. Hope this signals a trend.

Squidoo News: Completed first draft of my brand new (and only) Squidoo lens on the clutter project: Zap your clutter! I’d appreciate feedback from anyone who might see this post, if you have the time.

Twitter News: Two people are now following me. The first, amybleser is an internet marketer and photographer, among other things, so I’m sure to learn good things following her. The second, jpetals, kindly responded to a question I had about why I should hope to get thousands of followers on Twitter. She indicates that beau coup followers up the chances for beau coup traffic on external sites, which seems perfectly obvious now she points it out.

Desk New Year's Day 2009

Tickling the sleeping chaos monster is more like it, but hey, look at the progress I made. From this, on the right, taken yesterday, to this (left) taken after my first fifteen minute session today. I’m breathing easier already.

Desk tidier after 15 minutes paring the clutter

I did have to add temporarily to our household clutter. See the pretty little Christmas tin in the before pic? (Yes, there’s an unmentionable or two on the printer. All my dirty laundry is likely to show up on this blog sometime or other. How dare I find the courage to continue?)

Storage box for Christmas tins and decorations

Several other tins and various holiday decorations slouch around the house, so I pulled a box from the clutter pile in the entry hall, labeled it on four sides, and left it on a dining room chair, ready to receive the other re-usable and collectible items for storage as we uncover them.

How I feel: Relieved. This was fun. I look forward to the next fifteen minute session.

Strategy: Handle each item once. Find it a permanent home. This takes longer than stuffing everything into a box to sort later, but I don’t have to mess again with the objects I handled today, and when I need them, I know where to find them.

Next: Sort and respond to the remaining papers in the pile.

Messy desk New Year's Day 2009

I don’t know about you, but I spend more time at the computer than cleaning house and doing laundry. A year ago, our dream apartment opened unexpectedly. We signed the lease and moved with haste, no time off from our workaholic jobs. It’s been a busy year, with the birth of two grandchildren, major job changes for both of us, and plenty of other life events encroaching on our “free” time. Then there’s this whole computer thing. I’d rather create and edit than pee. My bladder’s a wreck. But that’s off the point.

Living Room1 New Year's Day 2009

Our closets are filled with unpacked boxes. Our TV sits on top of more boxes in the unshelved, open murphy-bed space in our living room.

Study--computer cables New Year's Day 2009

We warn guests to take care not to trip over computer cables crossing the doorway.

Over the last year I’ve collected grocery sacks and boxes full of unopened mail, unanswered letters, and important stuff that has to be taken care of right away. (Mmm, right.) I’m the messy one, btw. Dear Partner is much tidier than little ole moi.

It’s a constant battle, but I’m determined to be living in a tidy house 366 days from now (One extra for Leap Year!). So here’s the plan.

Fifteen minutes a day, five days a week, seven if I feel like it, I’ll tackle clutter. To keep me motivated, I’ll log into this blog and record my progress. I’m hoping I’ll find some folks out there to cheer me on, so I’ll be Twittering and maybe I’ll even build a Squidoo lens or two about it. What do you think?