Tag: decluttering

This is my office.

It’s a mess.

Like my writing life.

It’s time I clean up both of them.

Last week Thursday and Friday I went through my books and let go 24.

This past Tuesday I took a vacation day and cleaned my office. I dusted and vacuumed. I took everything out and organized my writing projects. I went through all of the pieces of paper that I had written notes on during my breaks at work and put them with the corresponding writing project.

The problem I have with my office is I have every article idea and short story idea in my office in a filing cabinet and on my coffee table.

Why?

Because this is what I have always done.

Not a good answer.

I realized this while I was reading an article by Gabrielle Garrett called “Why Throwing Out Old Bananas Is Imperative To Your Success”. In her article she equals unfinished projects to rotten bananas. She believes if we have too many goals or too many things on our to do lists and ideas that are set on the back burner we don’t act on these ideas and they begin to rot. These ideas clog up our lives and our minds. We need to throw away the rotten bananas and concentrate on 2 – 4 projects.

My office is full of rotten bananas. Unfinished novels. Short stories. Nonfiction books. Essays.

Dreams that didn’t come true.

Emotions that are stuck and stagnant.

While I was organizing my writing projects, I picked out four projects I want to work on. Everything else is going in the basement.

The files in the filing cabinet that I rarely look at are going in a bin in the basement. The files on the coffee table that I was working on (thinking about) are going in two bins. One bin I will work on after I publish/finish one of my writing projects. The other bin I will work on after I finish the first bin. I made a list of what is in each bin so if I am looking for a file I can easily find it.

I’ll show you what my office looks like after I get it set up the way I want. I’m going to sell the coffee table. I bought a cube organizer today.

In my next post I will share with you what my five writing projects are.

I’m excited to start walking in the direction of my dreams.