GET ORGANIZED

Coffee hours yak and snack session this morning focused the “Hoarders” TV show. If you haven’t seen it — don’t, unless you have a strong stomach. Each of us was trying to out gross the other with the description of a particularly disgusting episode. There are so many wonderfully disgusting shows to choose from. I liked the flat dead cat story but the winning (if you can have a winner in this mess) was the body of the woman’s daughter found under a pile of — who knows what. She thought her daughter has just left. The whole place was disgusting.

That conversation gravitated toward each of our own apartments. I know there are 3-4 hoarders somewhere in this complex. I know of one in this building and another wanna be. The garbage is piling up, but you can still walk around. Of the group gathered this morning I felt like I had the closest thing to a pigsty. Its not filthy, but neither is Better Homes and Gardens knocking at my door to photograph my apartment.

I am a piler. I have always been a piler. My piles are mostly paper, but since I now live along I have moved on to also piling clothes. I hate filing. I can find things in my piles. I never can find what I need in files. I never file them correctly. Go ahead jump on me. I’ve attended more seminars on time management than I can remember or sand pebbles on the beach. Well, maybe not that many. I may have even taught a few. If so, I hope I mentioned they should do as I say, not as I do. I probably didn’t. After all, I was the authority of the moment. Why mess that up with a confession.

I really hate that I pile things. My living room area has several specific places for piling. Naturally on my desk, I don’t really have a desk but there is space on each side of my computer. When that gets full I move to the top of my printer. Paid bills go on top of my tower hard drive (yes, I am not with the times. I have old technology). That is already four places. The area that is the most-messy is to the right of my computer. I have kind of thrown things there. I have a piled high TV table to the left of my computer. I don’t know what is really there. I haven’t looked in a long time. Usually there is a TV table in front of my chair. That is sort of like my dining room table. It’s handy. But instead of a nice small table clothe and a centerpiece I have another pile that I must stack higher when I eat there. Well, the last and final stacking place is an old TV stand that sits next to my recliner. My drafting board is right behind my chair and I got it to put my art supplies on when I am working. But because it is by the chair, it gets all kinds of weird things. A pill bottle I need to take in the middle of the day, some nail clippers, dental floss (when I cleaned up the area today I found five packs). Also coffees cups and drink glasses, a saucer or two from something I ate. Oh, there is one more place — my sofa. It only gets clothes unless of course I have a box or two on the floor when I vacuum. I was wrong. There seems to be eight places. That’s more than I thought.

So the Hoarders talk this morning got me thinking that it was time to eliminate some more things — to de-clutter the clutter. Both TV trays are nearly empty. Most of that was garbage. I rolled the TV stand into the hall and put a sign on it “Free- just roll it away.” It is gone already. There was a bookcase behind the TV stand and I have consolidated things there or dumped them. It already looks better and I have not even started with the desk. Getting rid of the TV stand gives me a lot more room. Either that or someone pushed the walls out when I wasn’t looking.

Let me leave this one thought. Ask not how to organize — ask if you are willing. I am, I am, I am! At least for today.