Spring Cleaning

Last week I finished up spring cleaning our house for this year. I always start the first week of March and clean one room per week till I'm finished, a 3 month job.
I was taught to do spring and fall cleaning, but when I was busy with preschoolers I ditched fall cleaning to preserve my sanity. But I would torture myself to clean like crazy so I could feel like my whole house was clean at the same time. After we remodeled -with double the square footage- there was no way I could do that anymore. I knew I had to pace myself. So I came up with the 1-room-a-week schedule. When my room is finished for the week, I can do other things without feeling guilty. Some rooms take a day, some rooms take several days, so I adjust according to what's on our calendar that week. It may not be your style, but it works for me.

Last week's room was the office. There is a reason that one usually gets left till last. I'm not sure if I should admit it, but we actually hauled 3 wheelbarrow loads of trash to the burn pile from that room this year!! The first load was an old set of encyclopedias. It makes me feel a little sad that virtually no one uses real books these days; Google is so much faster & easier. But alas, these books were hopelessly outdated and taking up space that could be better used for something else. Wheelbarrow load #2 was my scrapbooking magazines. When 2 shelves collapsed under the weight recently, the man of the house said they had to go. So I leafed through them, clipping ideas I still wanted to reference, but throwing the majority of each issue away. Some were 20 years old. Let's face it- the style is out of date, and if I didn't touch them for 5 years, why am I still hanging on to them? My grandmother's auction this spring clarified in my mind that other people won't want a lot of my sentimental items, and old magazines have no value. Wheelbarrow load #3 was all manner of paper trash- receipts, invoices, etc. that I purge from desk drawers annually. Somehow that stuff seems to multiply overnight like rabbits. Does anyone else have that problem or is it just me?

I didn't really like to hear it, but the man of the house says we are both pack rats. Maybe I'm deluding myself but I don't think I would go that far. Define 'pack rat'. When I get in the mood to organize, I have no trouble throwing things away. We are in no danger of a Hoarders Anonymous award, in my opinion. What I will admit is I tend to pile stuff in the office (or basement) because I don't have time to deal with it now and I think I'll get to it later. Sometimes it lays around till I forget why I wanted it. So it ends up in the trash after all. I will also admit that if we ever had to move, there is probably a massive pile of stuff in my basement that would not go with us. So far, my children vow they will never, ever want their old school papers I've saved & organized in totes. And I do have a box full of old Reader's Digests I need to pitch (as kids growing up my brothers & I would go in the attic and read old copies of the Reader's Digest stashed away up there, but my kids have never once rooted through my box of old RD).  

The great irony of last week was that while I was wading through all my "stuff", the de-cluttering guru, Kathi Lipp, hosted a podcast "Tips for DeCluttering Sentimental Stuff". I don't think I'll ever be so super organized -and non-sentimental- that I fall into the minimalist category. But I can see the wisdom in her tips "when everything is precious, nothing is!" and "Don't value the past or future and ignore the present. The clutter of the past and saving things for the future can just crowd out your present life." Truth that. I lost a whole week of my life sorting through the clutter I was saving for the future. If I can just stay organized in my sparkling clean office, I might have more time to scrapbook our life.

What organizational tips have you found that work for you?