Office Clean-Out - 2 1/2 Hours

Yesterday afternoon, it was a very hot time of day. So, I plugged in the air-conditioner, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and settled in for a good few hours of cleaning out of this here home office again.

Yep, I started on it last weekend or so, and it was left alone for a while - then the mess in here began to really bug the crap out of me.

So, yesterday, I jumped in feet first and really got into one of the bags and tossed out a full bag of receipts that needed shredding; and a bag full of rubbish - that's 2 bags of crap that's been sitting around the place in 'Green Bags'. I then opened up the purple boxes and started adding to them. These purple boxes (just a reminder) are about my life, school, and about me - they're personal things that go into them. Like the fishing competition certificate I scored when I was 7-years-old at Brunswick Heads... my fish wasn't big enough to get into the finals, but it was big enough for me to land on my own (around the 40cm mark if I remember right) and for a little kid like me that a huge!

Then, there were a few paid bills, a couple of bank statements and other things which were added to the yellow bag filled with bank statements and paid bills to be sorted out. I'm going to pull together all of these first then sort them out... it'll be easier for me to file in the end.

Otherwise, I grabbed the three boxes I have under my big block poster of 'What Dreams May Come' and sorted out my bookmarks, postcards and cards. I found that putting the cards - for people - into the black box was best, as I'm always buying blank cards and forgetting to use them; especially at Christmas-time. Then, there's cards from people I get; and love to keep (and I've got ideas for a lovely collage in the future too). Then, there's the bookmarks I can't fit in to the box on top of my desk... yep, there's a box filled with bookmarks and yet, I didn't buy a single one of them. I received those from a project I was doing in 2008, and got more than I expected from everyone on Bookcrossing. 
Well, I had to store them somewhere - and that somewhere was a in a box. So, I have another 40 or 50 bookmarks in that box I've yet to use. I don't think I need to buy or grab another free bookmark for the rest of my days on this planet - honestly, I don't.

By the end of the two and half hours, I had one bag of rubbish, one bag for shredding, had sorted out some of my high school things into a folder marked accordingly, found more bank statement and paid bills, and cleared my Reading Chair and its table next to it! Woah, that's a lot in that short amount of time! 

The Home Office is the last room in my townhouse which really does need a lot of TLC; and this is why it's taking me so long to work on it. This place also has all my personal gear here too... I know that sounds bad, but really, I should have done this years ago, but I didn't. So, learn by my mistakes and don't let your archiving and compiling of personal gear go too late. Do it now and early, so you can just add to it when you want to and need to. 

Catching Up

I know my last post seemed kind of menial; but I grew up around a Dad who taught me how to do those things; and my girlfriends who I went to school with had no clue how to change the oil in their cars (they didn't know there was oil in cars). 

So, that's why I wrote it.

I wasn't dissing females or people who don't do maintenance of their places, I was making sure people understood that taking care of their places means to do the hard work sometimes - even if you don't know how to do it.

This post is about catching up with things. 

I've been so darned busy lately that I've let my housework slide. Well, not my laundry - that always gets done - so does the putting out of the rubbish, but the other stuff. I have to vacuum, finish up archiving the files in my office and cleaning it out of the other bags. Then filing the books which are still sitting around the place too.

Yes, there's still so much to do, and I feel as though I'm running out of time - I'm not sure why - but I feel as though there's so much I need to do before something big happens in my life, but I don't know what it is yet.

Now, how strange is that? Have you ever gotten that urgent feeling you just need to get something done, and yet you're not sure why? Yeah, I have that nagging feeling bothering me. Oh well, I'll figure it out soon enough.

But I have been busily working out things lately. I've sent off a book to be read by one of my First Readers, I'm waiting for my new business cards to show up in the mail from Vistaprint and I've got half the Donation Box full of things I don't want anymore; all ready for the next trip to the charity store. There's still things around the home office to be cleared up, sorted out and put away; and the archive boxes sitting around - half-full - aren't doing me any favours.

So, what do you need to do over the next week? What kind of catching up is on your list? I'm hoping to add a few new habits to my life - but I find that when I do, things get really stressful and I have to drop them. Please do leave a comment and let us know how you're doing with your decluttering.

Hammering A Nail

Today is going to be a hot day, so I was up nice and early to get in and do some laundry and cleaning up around the house before the heat of the day started up.

I was up at 7am and pulled the sheets off the bed, stuffed them into the overloaded laundry basket and took it downstairs and put on the first load of laundry... then was back upstairs to open up the house, pull back the curtains and brush my hair. 

Then, I unlocked the doors out to the garden, watered the Frangipani cuttings in the yard and looked at my side gate - it really needed to be worked on, as it's got a broken piece on one of the palings. So, I searched through the long garden stakes I have sitting around and found a spare paling from the old fence the tradies didn't take with them, sized it up and knew it would fit! It wouldn't be a permanent fix, but it would do for now.

I hung out the sheets and put on the next load of laundry, organised myself to fix the gate and ate my first part of breakfast - porridge and pushed down my toast. Then I was outside hammering the paling onto the first paling already there. 

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, for those who haven't done this kind of thing before, it's not as easy as you may think. I have seen so many people stuff it up - and when I first did this, I realised that my Dad had had years of practice before I did this.

You see, I own galvanised fencing nails... bought them at Bunnings, as it's always good to have them on hand just in case you need them at some point in time. This is something I've learned over the time I've lived on my own and in my decluttering here. You're always learning how to do something - even if you stuff it up the first few times.

With the paling, this isn't my first rodeo in replacing a paling... so I know how to get it right the first time. I didn't have to take off the old paling, as it was just the bottom of the paling which was broken, I only had to have a paling long enough to cover it over. 

This is a temporary fix until I get a new gate.

So, seeing it had nails already through it - short ones - I hammered the ends back into the wood, turned it over and grabbed about 5 nails, stuck my foot under the bottom (which gives around 1cm space under the gate and enough room for it swing open and shut without grating the ground), then I put then nail about 1cm above the old nail and started hammering it through until it was attached to the old paling.

After this, I didn't need to have my foot under it anymore, and just had to hold both old and new palings in place with my hand with the other nail. This is noisy work. But once you get used to using a hammer - and knowing how far to swing back and how hard to hit a nail, you'll be okay. 

Tapping a nail 500 times gently bends it and you'll be there all day. Hitting hard - with your hand around halfway down the handle of the hammer and your swinging back to just behind your shoulder - will do the trick. Keep your eye on the nail, not your hand, and you'll be good, hard and concise. But if it does bend, tap it up or down depending where you need it go and keep hammering as before. DON'T TRY TO REMOVE IT!

This took me all of 10 minutes and just the two nails, to get done. But the first time I did this it took me around 25 minutes and 5 nails, because I had no idea what I was doing. With practice, it gets easier... but no less noisier. 

After this, I picked up any spare nails, put away my hammer and other nails into my tool chest and had other things that needed doing around the house. I had the mattress to clean (which has another 45 minutes to go with the bi-carb soda before I vacuum it all off) and then, I've washed 2 mason jars for a project I'm going to start this week too for Christmas. Well, that's all for now. What projects and things have you gotten into this week? 

Two Hours

Yesterday afternoon, I took two hours out of the day - the hottest part of the day - to sort through as much stuff as I could in my home office to find the bills and bank statements to put into the green archive box.

First though, I grabbed the ones from the filing cabinet that were already in date order. Now, this cabinet isn't all that big, so I was getting rid of excess weight from there. This is a good thing; as I may also be getting in and using this filing cabinet for just my writing in the end - yay!

Anyway, I've decided to make the files of all the bills and bank statements work on a 5-year cycle. So, it doesn't matter which order those are in, so long they fit in those years in those files. It's easier for me - and thus will be easier for anyone who needs to look after my records in the future.

Well! I ended up going through 3 synthetic bags and finding a huge amount of bank statements and bills and putting them into another bag - to sort through properly later.

Then, I tied up 3 rubbish bags and threw them into the bin outside.

I have another bag filled to the brim with receipts from a number years ago; which need shredding. Any receipt that I've accumulated over the years, goes into a bag and I'll be taking it to my folks' house and shred it (until I buy myself a shredder at some point in time to do this myself). 

There's one bag left where there's things left over that I need to sort through - just notebooks, bookmarks and other things I don't know what to do with yet. So, that's about a quarter full and I'm keeping that off to one side until I'm finished with the other 3 synthetic bags; just to see exactly how much junk I really do have left over... then, I'll sort through that all in one hit.

Otherwise, yesterday, I got through a lot of things in just 2 hours - between 2pm and 4pm - and I'm proud to say that I'll do it again today or tomorrow just to get it all down to what I need it to be. 

But I also got in and worked on my usual habits around the house too. I made the bed, I pulled in the three loads of laundry I had put out, put away the clothes horse and sorted out dinner for myself (which was roast vegetables and fish). 

I do have some clothes to put away, other clothes to sort through and some other decluttering to do in the living room to get it all sorted out before next month... then there's business cards to order for my markets in October.  Yep, my life has become very busy indeed. I hope your life and your decluttering is going well. Please do keep us updated with how you're doing... even if you feel as though you're not going all that great, somebody may be able to help you out. 

Home Office Declutter

I know! I know! I've done this one before; and I've said it to you as well, I'd come back and hit one of these places once in a while just in case the decluttering gets kinda... well... you know: recluttered again. 

Now, that's a word for ya: recluttered. 

Yeah, my home office was tidy at one point in time - I don't remember when - and now, it's back to being an absolute pig stye again! 

Well, yesterday, I went off to Office Works and looked around for storage solutions and found myself looking at archive boxes.

Pretty boring, right? Wrong! When you think of archive boxes, you think of those beige, dingy boxes which hold files in an office... they're not pulled out except around tax time, or when you're really looking for a certain something. Well, Office Works have them in that horrible colour - or in all the colours of the rainbow! 

I picked a lovely royal purple colour and then went in search of file folders and manilla folders to work with. And what I found in the way of that was astounding! I found manilla folders, as well as other types of folders - in every colour imaginable! I was there for around fifteen minutes having fun picking out a collection of colours for this box... and yet I hadn't even put it together yet!

I ended up at my parents' house and Mum helped me put the box together (yeah, I'm not great at following instructions - but Mum's good at that part of the archive box thing.). Once we got it all put together, and I put the folders inside it, it was looking very smashing indeed!
But it wasn't until I got it home and started filling it up with my things that it really started to take shape - and I realised I did need a second archive box; and a couple of other colours too!

Yes, all my banking and bills are going to go into a different coloured box or two! But I'm going to have to wait until another day to purchase those boxes. Until then, I'll be working on which bills are which, which bank statements are which and getting it all into date order. Sounds like it'll take a while, but it won't. 

By the time I get it all into the archive boxes, the home office will be tidier and there'll be less of a mess on the floor and I won't be using the synthetic bags for the storage of those things anymore. This is just the beginning of my home office clean out... in more ways than one! 

And this time, it'll be permanent too!

More New Habits

In February, I wrote a post 'Developing New Habits' and said I'd come back to you and tell you about how I'm doing with these new habits.

Well, I'm going well. 

But it starts with baby steps. 

My new habits start before I even go to bed. I wash up everything from the day and put it on the drainer, wipe down the counters, the sink, and the kitchen table and then put away all the remote controls, turn off the television at the wall, throw out the tea from the teapot. Then, I put out the rubbish in the outside bin, put in a new bin liner, lock the doors, check that my alarm is on on my phone. 
I put away anything I have been using that night too. If I used a footstool and a rug, I put the footstool away and fold the rug and put it on top of it. Then, I straighten up the rest of the living room and the kitchen table. Anything on the kitchen table from dinner (salt'n'pepper, sauces, a spare fork or knife?), I put them away or wash them up (nope, I haven't emptied the sink yet). Once it's all done, I get in and make sure the cloth is spread out on the sink so it dries and the kitchen towel is over the items in the drainer.

When I go upstairs, I find that my bed was made during the day. Before the end of the day - before the sun goes down - I have to make my bed. I don't mean just pull the covers up and throw everything on there and pray it looks okay. I mean, pull the sheets back, the pillows off and make the bed complete. Then, when I go to bed, it feels fresh and lovely and I can go to sleep happy. It makes you feel great when you shuffle into your bedroom and you find a lovely, nicely-made bed greeting you; instead of something that resembles a teenager's bedroom - all messed up and turned over.

I've gotten into planning my meals as well. It doesn't take much; and it's saving me around $30 a week on my budget. I've been writing down only what I need to get on my shopping list and sticking to it. If I don't need to go anywhere, I just don't drive the car - the amount of petrol I've been saving is amazing when I've been walking places which are local too. Like the post office and to get the paper. 

More recently, I've had a Radio Silence Day. This was on 31st August and it was because this is the day Lady Diana passed. I was over in the UK when it happened and it really struck a nerve with me - and still does. So, what I've been doing over the past 10 years is having a Radio Silence Day on the day... but still it wouldn't hurt to have more of them throughout the year on particular dates. You see, on this day, I got so much decluttering done!
I did all my laundry, decluttered my vinyl collection, washed the kitchen floor, mowed the lawn, put away all the wiping up (which caused me to clean the entire sink with Gumption - and it's now nice and sparkling clean) and then I sorted out the price tags for a Pop-up Store I'm taking part in at a local gallery. Then, I ended the day with a great set of vinyls being played while I did some needlepoint and had a nice cool drink... now, that was a great and useful day. 

Yep, a Radio Silence Day is a good idea. I will need another one soon to clean out the office and my wardrobe, as we come into Summer here in Australia. Well, what have you achieved over this time? Have you developed any new habits, which have turned into good habits over time? Do share with us all what they are and how they've helped you in your place and in your life of decluttering.