It wasn’t great when I left to visit family, and then the mail and other detritus crawled on top and died right there. It was an avalanche waiting to happen, and I’m pretty sure if it fell it would take us 3 days to dig out.

So I cleared it off. Everything. Yes, everything. No, seriously. It filled up a big reusable Ikea bag. Have you seen how huge those things are? Yeah. To the brim. Now, admittedly I did also clear out a shelf that hangs over my desk, and I left a few small items. But I just wanted to see my desk top again.

And I do! Yay!

Here comes the hard part. What do I do with all of that stuff?

I’m tempted to leave it in the bag for a week and see what I really need out of it. Things that I need will get dug out and placed back on the desk. And after a week, the other stuff gets stored or tossed.

I already went through the bag once, throwing out any junk, old flyers, expired coupons, unnecessary receipts. But there’s still a lot in there.

I’ve decided that I’ll only keep a couple of current projects handy. An art journal, a couple of books I’m planning to read and review. Everything else can go… elsewhere. I don’t need 10 books on my desk when I’m only currently looking at two of them. It just adds clutter.

I still have some receipts and paperwork to file. Others to shred.

It feels so nice. I’m really going to see if I can get by like this. I look around at it and go “Ahhhhhh.” It’s so much more serene. I highly recommend this. Take everything you possibly can off of your desk and only put back the essentials. Not what’s convenient — just essentials. See if it can work for you.

I bet you won’t even miss most of it. I probably won’t either. I’ll let you know what I discovered that I needed most.

image credit: morgueFile

Or maybe until you decide to tackle spring cleaning.

Helping her clean really motivated me to clear out my own place. We have way too much stuff in a tiny, one-bedroom condo. And it’s high time we got rid of over ten years of clutter. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

We started with our dining room, where we had a small chest freezer. Due to a faulty wall plug, we haven’t had any food in it for a while. So we moved it onto the balcony and out of the way. We do plan on using it again, but I think it’ll be able to stay out there as long as we run a plug out there. Then we removed an old desk that wasn’t used and I emptied an entire bookshelf to clear up some space.

For the books, we’re deciding which books we will keep for our new place, and which ones we can do without. We have a Goodwill bookstore across the street, which also accepts donations. It’s a perfect place to drop off our books or any other donations we need to make.

It’s a slow process. I’m not rushing to get it all done in a weekend. But I find that I’m more willing to give things up. As I pulled out a t-shirt this afternoon, I took five minutes to remove shirts I don’t wear or that don’t fit. It’s one drawer, but it’s one less thing to do.

I find that I love being able to pile things up for donations. Seeing the clutter slowly disappear. It’s awesome. We are also keeping more valuable things to list on craigslist.org. In the last month we’ve sold a few things. It’s not a lot of money, but every little bit goes into our moving fund.

The spring cleaning bug has hit me and I’m not fighting it one bit. I’m using the momentum to clear things out. The more ordered my surroundings are, the easier it is for me to see what I really need to do. I love that feeling.

Have you started spring cleaning? Do you clear out each year? Quarterly?

image: taken in Belize

We’ve been trying to cook and eat at home more. Not only is it more healthy, but it’s better for our budget. Of course, the natural result of all that cooking is? Lots of dishes. And we have no dishwasher.

Right after the evening meal it’s time for baby’s bath, book, and bedtime. That makes it hard to immediately clean up the kitchen. After I’m done with his nightly routine, I have other work to do. Writing. Other paying work. It’s easy to put off the kitchen cleaning.

But I’m trying to take it in bites. I went in for 20 minutes just to get done what I could. I washed a sink’s worth of dishes. And I tried some new cleaner on the stove. It’s not a lot, really. But part of the sink is clear and stove is shining. When you walk in, you’re greeted with the stove. So although it’s not completely done, seeing that clean stove sure does make it easier to tackle the rest of the kitchen.

So when a room is just too big to deal with all at once, take it in bites. What’s the one thing that bugs you the most about that room? For me, it was seeing a dirty stove piled high. Maybe it’s a dirty bathroom sink or toilet. Or the living room carpet. Start there. Time yourself and see how much you can get done in 10, 15, or 20 minutes. Choose something that you’ll notice. Something you can make a dent in so you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something.

Then do another task the next night. And the next. Keep plugging away in short bursts and you’ll soon have the entire thing tackled. One bite at a time.

[image: morgueFile]