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Stacks & Piles of Stuff

Written by: suzanne rodriguez 302 views

The New Year is coming, which means it’s time—once again—to come up with some resolutions for change. A friend of mine is determined to finally rid his workspace of its huge paper mountains and assorted piles of other stuff. According to him, every time he walks into his office the sight of those stacks makes him feel stressed out and miserable.

“I won’t begin 2009 with my office in this condition!” he insists. There’s more truth to this than he realizes, I think, since those stacks threaten to bury him in an avalanche before the year is out.

The thought of that got me so worried that I sat down and scribbled a few tips to help him clear out the debris:

Set a Deadline for Completing the Job: Make this task real. Enter it on your To Do List, tell your friends, set reminders to yourself.

Inspect the Job Site:  Spend some time sitting in the middle of the mess. Don’t do anything. Instead, just imagine how the space will look when the piles have disappeared. Keeping that picture steady in your mind, look past all the piles to the “bones” of your office. Where are the storage spaces? Are they being used wisely at the moment? How can you improve on present storage capabilities? Do you need more filing cabinets, pretty file boxes, bookcases? Don’t buy anything yet. It’s just a good idea to start thinking of ways to contain important papers and other things you need—ways that suit your office and work style.

Place Three Big Bins or Boxes in Your Office—One each for Trash, Recycled Material, and Thrift Shop Donations: When you decide to get rid of something, you don’t want to simply place it in another pile. You want to dispose of it forever. Having “Bye-Bye Bins” right there makes sure you do.

Don’t Forget the Shredder: If a document contains your name and address or any other information that identifies you, don’t just throw it away. Shred it into oblivion.

Eyeball Your Piles for the Obvious: No doubt there are plenty of things piled up around your office that actually have a home. Put all of those things where they belong, give them back to the owners from which you’ve borrowed them, and so on. Doing so will make your cleaning-up task seem a lot more manageable.

Tackle a Pile—Any Pile: No time like the present to get started. Focus on one pile at a time. Many papers or items are a no-brainer and will go straight into one of the bye-bye bins. Other things may be more difficult. Each time you hesitate to bin something, ask yourself whether you’ve missed it while it was buried in a pile. If you haven’t missed it—bin it!

Obviously, some papers and items are going to survive the binning process. Put them aside until you’re completely done going through all the piles.

Go Through the Stuff You’ve Put Aside: After your initial de-piling, take a second look at the items you’ve held on to. Believe me, when you go through these things again, you’ll find more to put in the bins.

Get Rid of the Bins: Now that all piles have been gone through and you’ve sifted the leftovers, you won’t have much need for your three big bins. Take them out of your office (you’ll later recycle the contents of one bin, and donate the useable stuff to a thrift shop).

Examine the Leftovers: Maybe the items you’re left with will fit neatly into your current storage system. If so, Bravo! You’ve done a boffo job.

On the other hand, maybe you don’t have a storage system, or need more storage possibilities. If so, consider what you’ll need to house the stuff that remains—and consider future storage space while you’re at it. Do you need to buy file cabinets, boxes, a bookcase, racks, other containers? If so, give some thought to the way you work. Are you the filing cabinet type? Or maybe you prefer stacked boxes. Whatever. Make it easy for yourself to file things in a logical place rather than begin constructing piles again.

Keeping the Stacks Away…Permanently: Make a point of putting things away at the end of the day. If you need to keep paperwork for a day or two, put a magazine file at the corner of your desk and label it “Current Paperwork.” That way it’s neatly contained, not piled up. If you force yourself to do this for a few weeks, you’ll soon get into the habit.

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© Suzanne Rodriguez
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