Simplifile

Yesterday, I stayed home from work sick with a migraine. I slept all morning. After I had lunch and leisurely finished the novel I was reading, I got a bit of energy. I've been inspired by another book I've been reading, Make Your Creative Dreams Real, by SARK. She has this brilliant concept called "micromovements". Basically, she says that we often get stymied in our goals because we have such big goals, and we need to break it into tiny steps that are achievable in up to 5 minute blocks. When we get going doing a micromovement, sometimes we'll get momentum and energy and desire to do a whole lot more.

Well, about two weeks ago, I decided to hit some micromovements towards organizing at home. Since I do so much filing at work, I don't like to deal with paperwork at home. Usually, I like to go through my active files once I have my taxes done, and cull out all the stuff from the previous year, and put it in an archive box. I still hadn't done that, and here it is 7 months into the "new" year!

I had a huge stack of "to file" as well. Kind of like this...



So here are the micromovements -

1st: go to "office", gather up "to file" piles and move them into living room.
2nd: roll file drawers to living room.

I think then it sat in the living room for a few days with no further progress.

3rd: gather up additional "to file" folders from desk and take to living room.
4th: while watching tv, use commercials to sort "to file" papers into appropriate stacks and throw out the obvious trash (used tissues, Sonic receipts, expired coupons and such like detritus). I did this for one show, and then put it all away again for a few days, because it was time to go to bed.

I don't think this is a micromovement, but it was a moving of the project - physically at least -
5th: neatly stacked papers on top of file drawers and move them to corner of living room so we could have people over.
At this stage, it could have gone bad - the file drawers and stack could have stayed there for 6 more months of "good intentions". I admit I was a little worried about that...

This brings us to yesterday. This was not a micromovement, but a giant wading into the project.

In my spate of energetic goodwill (you have to feel positive to tackle filing. Otherwise, it will bring you down down down) I pulled the drawer and various layers of paper, folders, mail, etc into the dining room where I have good light, can sit and spread out papers so I don't get cramped like when I'm on the floor in the living room, and where I'm close to good music and the cathartic presence of my parakeets. They like being in the action!

Kerry is blue with purple glimmers


Blythe is lightest yellow with teal

I went through each paper, refining my sorting piles, and finally putting satisfactory sheaths of papers into my file drawers' hanging folders.

A miracle of joy went through me when I got to the bottom of the file box and the mail bin! Woo hoo! Such a milepost!

I was a bit beat at that point, though. So I couldn't yet tackle the ultimate goal, that of pulling out all of 2008's papers and storing them.

After I rested from the cataloguing and filing for a few hours, I was ready to finish it up. I dug around the storage closet for my archive - a banker's box like this -
and carried it upstairs to the dining room. I got out my gallon size clear storage bags. Then I went through the files in the file drawers.


It's always a downer to see how your money has been spent over the past year, the inches thick stack of medical-related papers, maps to friends houses I don't see anymore, insurance booklets for insurance I wish I could pay for now but can't, receipts for things that have since broken.

But there is a cheering side, too - that I'm not needing to see all the doctors I was seeing because my migraines have become less frequent, maps from friends' visits remind me of great times we've had together, little notecards from people saying they're thinking about me, helpful articles I pull out to read.

I find that I have put off going through my maps folder for way too long! I have maps to friends houses in Orlando from five years ago! I have maps to people's houses and they've moved into new homes now. I have a load of "new to Nashville" information that I'd grabbed when I first got here...almost four years ago!

Thank God for recycling!

I happily wheeled my much lighter, leaner, cleaner file drawer back to the office and the EMPTY "to file" box and mail bin next to my desk.

DONE!


thanks to Microsoft Office clip art for all the FREE fun images...