RSSCleaning the Office
For the past week and a half I’ve been cleaning the office. Not a “I haven’t dusted in a while” cleaning, but a “I’ve been throwing crap into boxes and throwing boxes into the closet and fuck has the office turned into a shitpit” cleaning….
I’ve been avoiding this postmodern bane mostly because of the ridiculous amount of office products I own.
It’s embarrassing—how much stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. So I’ve been going through every single box and container and scrutinizing every individual item as to whether it’s worth keeping, storing, tossing, or donating. I started at the bookcase and worked in a circle around the room. The bookcase was easy, but I got stuck on the closet for a few days—several days. It was scary.
There were times where I had to sit down and just stare at nothing. I got lost in all the paper. I found the lawn goose’s bee costume and started to laugh to myself, quietly.
What person needs over 60 spiral notebooks? Over 20 binders? A storage bag full of pens of every type?
In one box I found my external flash I thought was lost. In another box I found old pay stubs from jobs I had in high school. I also went through the box of stuff from college and significantly reduced its size.
On the left is paper to be recycled, on the right shredded:
George is close to getting buried by all the paper:
While I can’t be sure, I’m thinking I was part of the reason why my alma mater instituted a printing cap my junior year:
I’ve now made it to my main desk. There are two and half boxes full of the crap that had been on my desk (and on top of the bookcase and strewn about in general–I’m a stacker) that I’m not sure what to do with. I’ll be shutting down the computer later to give it a thorough cleaning and then I’ll reconstruct my desk.
This shit’s insane.
Part of me is SO FUCKING RELIEVED to be rid of so much stuff, but the other part is saying “You can’t give that away! What if you need it in five years?!”
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Relieved to toss:
These PAPER NOTECARDS were a requirement for an “educational technology” course I took when I was contemplating changing my major to social studies education. I am still so fucking pissed they had us make a PAPER VERSION of a souped-up POWERPOINT PRESENTATION, this thing they call a “web quest” (or the thing I call “Student Busy Work for Lazy-ass Teachers”). PAPER?!
And this, this is a PAPER FLOWCHART of the presentation, also required. This was one of the top three worst classes ever endured.
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7 Comments
GOD, I *HATED* that class. Hate, hate, hate.
After the upstairs apt. caused major damage to my ceiling, I had to move all the stuff in my bedroom. I had to do it quickly so I just threw everything into trash bags. Once the room was fixed and I had to bring everything back, I just couldn’t do it. The room looked so clean and empty. I hated the thought of junking it up again. So I threw TONS of crap away. I had stuff dating back to junior high! Whoa. It’s unbelievable how much stuff we convince ourselves we need.
@Pea: I’m finding myself in that very position! I had all this crap piled on my desk and now that I’ve put what I’ve wanted back on, there is so much left with nowhere to go but out.
Cleaning the office seems to be a re-occurring theme in your life! I never really thought of it as being overly messy, just ‘busy’.
@bedwetter: I’d call our living room ‘busy’. –The office actually got worse after you left. I wanted to walk around without having to squeeze through or jump over something.
I love the improvements so far! You can breathe in the room without feeling overwhelmed. I really wish you had before and after pictures. Oh well.
It’s nice to purge and when spring comes, we can do some serious spring cleaning!
Oh the joys!
More cleaning! Yay!