Tidying

[redbird]

I have thrown out seven plastic grocery bags full of papers, mostly old apa mailings, years-old utility bills, and handwritten notes no longer identifiable. That, plus a couple of stacks moved to a bookshelf, cleared the right-hand side of my desk.

In the process, I have found no fewer than six pairs of eyeglasses (and discarded a seventh eyeglass case on the grounds that it was empty), a charming bronze platypus and a little jadeite cat, and even a few small useful objects.

The next steps are

1. Transcribe some addresses and phone numbers from loose Rolodex cards to my computer


2. Do the same for the left-hand side of the desk, including the stack over the printer


3. Go through all those envelopes full of photos, and at least figure out which, if any, of the second prints I actually want


4. Look at the floppy disks found during this afternoon's work, and figure out what's worth keeping, and how much of that should be simply moved to a hard drive
   
5. Wash the cleared space more thoroughly


6. Try those eyeglasses and see which of them are still useful to me

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Wow! Well done :-)

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Wow... can you teach me how to throw things away? I am really bad at it. In fact, I just got around to shredding my bank statements before two years ago. All of them. All the way back to my very first savings account from 1983. I don't know, I thought I might need them. I did keep the bank book from 1983, just because it was so cute and handstamped and quaint.

Are you sure I don't need receipts from the 70s?

Awesome to see you yesterday, BTW. :)

[redbird]

I'm just hoping I can remember how. You're asking someone whose stack of things thrown away today included an appointment book from 1992.

Woohoo

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Go, Hobbit, go!

Brava!

[(Anonymous)]

Way to go on the HSR (Horizontal Surface Reclamation, as we say in alt.recovery.clutter newsgroup). I guess the desk is a hot spot? or you'll find out if it is in the next few days.

I'm going to move my computer desk to another corner of this room, which meant emptying and moving a rattan etagere that was already there. I dug down to the lowest shelf and found I was throwing away a few timesheets from a job I had in 1990! So that corner did indeed need tidying.

Anita Rowland (http://www.anitarowland.com/)

[boxofdelights]

Yay, you!

[misia.livejournal.com]

You are my desk cleaning role model. I recently cleaned the rest of my office, but I didn't make a dent in the horror show that is my desktop. Soon, I keep telling myself, soon... until then I am trying to resist the lure of the sedimentary filing method.