My home office is inundated with stuff: 3-ring binders, file folders, a couple of dead telephones, old computer equipment, books, software and most of all, PAPER.
The sad thing is that there is probably a subset of useful items in the pile of “stuff”, but it would require sorting through this post-apocalyptic rubble to find it.
I marvel at my friend, Cathy, who’s managed to encapsulate her 50-plus year old life into one tiny studio apartment. Not only is she perfectly organized, her one room plus kitchenette-and-bath home is charming and exquisitely decorated.
It isn’t like I don’t clean house on a regular basis – I do. The “stuff” keeps on accumulating anyway.
Part of this has to do with the fact that my interests change on a regular basis, so instead of having only one source of professional “stuff”, I end up with two or even three at a time.
Cathy, for example, is an accountant, as opposed to being in the wild-and-wooly technology space, which generates latest-and-greatest “stuff” at about the same rate as the increase in the national deficit. She also has a regular job and works in a large office, where she can keep whatever professional “stuff” she needs.
To be honest, though, a lot of my technology “stuff” is more about good intentions and missed opportunities than actual performance, both my own and other people’s.
For instance, someone promised me – a long time ago – to reconfig a used server so that I could experiment with some MSFT software that won’t run on my current machines.
He’s promised, and promised, and promised again, and now he’s on vacation until after the first of the year. And this is someone who prides himself on teaching others the importance of keeping commitments.
So, I have thousands of dollars of perfectly good applications which I can’t use. Fortunately, these were provided through a subscription service, so it’s not like I’m out of pocket, but it still galls me.
What I need to do is to forget about recycling, lose the belief that some day I might need something in the pile of “stuff”, and pitch all of it, every last scrap of paper, magazine, DVD, 3-ring binder, the lot. It’s not so massive that I’d need to rent a dumpster. It would all fit into two or three big trash bags – the truck wouldn’t break a sweat hauling the whole mess to the transfer station.
Unlike those with spouses and kids, the only permission I need is my own, which makes me luckier than a lot of other people, especially this morning, the day after Christmas.