An Organized Room of My Own. Mostly.

Whoever said that everything takes longer than you think it will might have had children, a house, a spouse, several consulting clients, a visiting mother, balky electronic gadgets, classes to plan, books to review, two editing assignments, and a distracting habit of occasionally enjoying sleep and regular meals. This person was probably also trying to write something. Ha! This same person likely also was too smart to try, amid the above named chaos, to do a complete office de-cluttering and overhaul, thinking X number of days was probably enough.

Still, I did promise photos after the deed. Well, the deed is about 80 percent done.
And this is how the office looks now,

in contrast to how it looked then.

Then, there's this -- piles still awaiting sorting (yes, I know I am ridiculously lucky to have such a large home office...) and this mass

of electronic messiness (where are those cord bunching thingees Santa brought?).

No, it still hasn't been painted, the comfortable corner reading chair a friend is giving me is still not here, and it's still mostly filled with cast-off furniture and bins, and makeshift shelving my husband's company once used to display merchandise at his retail clients' stores. But now it's a room of my own in which, for the first time in a long time, I can see where my own stuff is stored. And not piled on my desk and floor. That's a start.

I thought at this point, I'd have some nifty ideas to pass along about how to best organize things, some ingenious new system I'd share, a few terrific tips. I don't. I can only offer that the tried-and-true advice works; toss out a lot (12 bags and counting), group what's left in ways that make sense, and be ruthless about what's necessary and what's just nice to have around.

Today's the first day in the "new office". I did find it easier to get through the to-do list and – except for that one file folder I could swear I put in the top drawer -- I spent almost no time looking for something I know is "here somewhere."