Posts

A mountain of clutter - Cottonwood Lakes 2020

Decluttering a Mountain in My Mind

/in /by

What has felt like a mountain of clutter in my mind crumbled into a manageable molehill after I stopped procrastinating.

I have a banker’s box filled with miscellaneous paperwork. When I want to read something, I place it in this box. Unfortunately, this practice resulted in a growing collection of assorted papers and magazines for over a decade. While I’ve reviewed and tossed or shredded papers in this box, they reproduce.

I took some time on Easter Sunday, to go through this box after being inspired by memories of a “recovering procrastinator.” I searched online to see what she was up to. We hadn’t been in touch in a few years while I was going through a divorce. Rita Emmett had a marvelous sense of humor as she spoke and wrote about procrastinating. Sadly, she died almost two years ago.

During one of our last calls, Rita and I talked about how a molehill of tasks grows into a mountain, simply because we keep putting it off.

A mountain of clutter

This box is in my office next to the file cabinet. Seeing it, reminds me daily to continue making progress. While the mountain seemed too high; once I started climbing, it began to crumble. My “treasured keepsakes” no longer held the importance I once ascribed to them.

Today, I have different needs and interests.

Paperwork is the most time-consuming. Some people will say, “I don’t even want to see it. Toss it.” Others will need to go through it once more. I am one of the others. It’s a good thing, because I found financial records that need to be shredded.

I also found a little surprise—my notes from a wine-tasting trip from about 20 years ago. Since I’m planning a trip to the same area next month, these detailed notes were a helpful reminder of my experiences.

While the contents in the box are more loosely spaced and easier to look through, I keep adding files and other paperwork. Still, I’m a lot further along thanks to inspiring memories of Rita.

Also read—

Decluttering for Relaxation on Presidents’ Day

Tomorrow is Too Late to Deal with Procrastination

File Cabinet Drawer Open Avadian

We need to declutter and archive statements more often.

/2 Comments/in /by

File Cabinet Drawer Open Avadian

The truth is my husband and I archive our records once every three years. Thirty-six months of accumulated paperwork is all our file cabinets can handle.

By this time, our files have grown so full that even the hanging folders lose their grip and collapse from the weight of being overstuffed.

It’s also about this time that my husband and I hate filing papers. It becomes a chore to try to stuff one more balanced credit union statement, one more receipt, one more paid utility bill, one more… In years past, we’d start a pile in front of the file cabinet. But we learned painful lessons over the years when having to file all that accumulated paperwork.

Late last year, my husband, David, removed all the pre-2014 paperwork and stacked all those sheets of paper into a neat pile on a shelf.

Time to Archive

It was exactly three years and one month this past weekend, when we pulled out the banker’s boxes and plastic storage bins in order to archive this paperwork among our older records.

Eeeeewwwwww. There was even a dated note on one of the bins: 12/18/2011 This bin is full.

 We need to let go of our older records.

As a STUFFologist, the thought of buying a new bin did not occur to me. Instead, using Nature’s process as noted in “Input Throughput Output,” Chapter 21 in Part Four of (click on) STUFFology 101, we needed to let go of some stuff.

It took the better part of a quarter hour to decide what we would let go and then the better part of three hours to get the job done.

We keep records of the last seven years. Anything prior to that, we reviewed and reduced to make room for the newer records.

It’s a slow process at best because it’s not simply a matter of tossing records from 2006 and earlier. You may recall I have a need to look through my paperwork one more time before letting go. So, the process will take a bit longer.

For one thing, I purchased a few stocks over a decade ago that I still own. I need to look through my paperwork to see if I still have those records. It would be much harder to get them from the brokerage as I’ve changed brokers over the years, too. I’ll need this information to calculate the long-term capital gain when I’m ready to sell.

This is the process of dealing with (click on) S.T.U.F.F.—we need to Start, Trust the process, Understand that it will take time, and Focus, in order to Finish.

David and I decided that we need to archive and de-clutter statements more often.

In one and a half weeks, we’ve set aside time to return to this process of removing our older records. This time, it should be easier since we’re not waiting three years to review and be reacquainted with our filing system. Over time, I have faith that the process will move faster as we feel strengthened by saving only what we need.

How about you? What area do you define as clutter and how can you get started with decluttering your STUFF?