SLOWLY develop a working routine for tidying my work place, making it more of an orderly, humming sanctuary. Set a time to put this routine in place, then do it.

that usually wind up clutteringly clustering on little scraps of paper, the back of envelopes, etc… This will stay by my phone. Started using it today, incorporating bits and pieces from bits and pieces of paper… already more wood on the desk is visible and I can see this will be a Good Thing.

Taming the paper tiger! Hooray, me!

In the morning, before breakfast, I do my exercise. I combine that with running the mail to the P.O.

It’s slowly developing.

I realized I needed to rearrange the space. My boyfriend, whose skills in moving furniture and space rearrangement have earned him the affectionate sobriquet “Dr. Tightfit” (not just from me, from many friends) came up with some good ideas.

Now just to do that old thing… what’s it called again? Oh, yeah…IMPLEMENTATION!!!

automatically the same day that I did a project that kind of disheveled stuff. Whoo-hoo!

I borrow this goal , with thanks , from FairlyFearless.

and you know, just a baby-step straighten-up makes SUCH a difference. I really have a beautiful workspace… a little picking up and it just glows. And I feel happier coming into it.

A lot if just throwing stuff out... dealing with papers and discarding them, not letting them pile up and look messy and make me feel anxious and guilty. (Wierd to think that little pieces of paper can have all that power. Which I guess I give to them. )

right!

Trying to pick up and throw out or file 7 pieces of paper and 2-3 books whenever I come in.

Amazingly hard to do this.

Need to vack up all the little punched out circles of paper from my customized notebook/logbook planner (see goal which follows).

This neccesitated a lot of hole punching (and also left bedroom desk quite littered with art supplies… and the bedroom has always been the one place I for sure kept clean and serene).

Sometimes one has to measure progress with a micrometer…

The trash under the keyhole desk… placed a box underneath for papers which can be recycled, AND left the old waste basket, for non-recylable trash.

Also placed a shoebox on the desk for All Things Receipt-Related. Within shoebox, a reddish-pink labeled envelope in which to place receipts that are reimburseable, and which must be submitted to one of the companies I work for, and another envelope for as-yet-unsorted receipts which go to my bookkeeper (see goal # 6).

Part 1 of the routine: empty non-recyl trash basket every day or two, and, when I am finished with a piece of paper, immediately put it into the paper recy box.
Back when I could afford a once-a-week housekeeper, she (Jo) used to say, in a sorghum-syrup thick Southern inflection, “Taking out the trash is good feng-shui.” Well, and it is! You don’t have to know one single solitary thing about feng-shui to see how it would be! Why would you want to hold on to stuff you have discarded? Duh… To do so is counter-sanctuary; cluttered space, cluttered mind, physical manifestation of inability or unwillingness to let go. To finish.

(Ding! That was the bell that just rang in my head about a certain project I am procrastinating / lollygagging on, see Goal # 8 , worse than I ever have, on anything.)

Already I can see way more wood on the rolltop desk.

I think this is one I can realistically keep up with.

I know the trick is, avoid all-or-nothing thinking. Don’t do so much that I burn out. Take baby steps.

IMAGE: I Googled “images pencils & pens in jars” and this came up. It looks remarkably like the one on my desk, except mine also has a couple of rulers and a letter opener (why? I NEVER use it!) and it’s a short milk pitcher… looks like a mug, but has a small spout. Which could be in the picture, just on the hidden side across from the handle).

honor this, with the self-care and by showing respect towards the place in which I work. I have a beautiful vast view, I work at home on my own schedule, at activties which so many people (here and elsewhere) say they want to do. I have been reasonably successfuly self-emplyed for decades. Time to make the space in which I do all this welcoming.

I said in the goal “I ought” but I think I will change this soon. No “oughts” or “shoulds”... Just “want to” and “will” , albeit gradually.

My mother used to quote a poem that went” Order is a lovely thing / on dissaray it lays its wing.”

Never have laid that wing on the creative chaos (or so I have called it) of my office. About time, I think.

Wonder why I have never been able to give myself this consistently, at least so far?