Here are some other problem areas both at home and in the office (or in both of you happen to work at home). Please do not consider tackling this unless you are in the company of a thinking and functioning adult, as the results can be unexpected.
The desk and its drawers: Clutter Monsters.
First of all, take a look. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Do you recognize everything as yours or are you ready to blame it on someone, anyone else? If the desk-top doesn’t look bad, start with one of the drawers. (We will deal with the desk-top later.) If you are home, dump the contents of the top drawer (or the one you open most often) onto the bed or some place you need every day. This way, you can’t put off doing this if you want to go to sleep. First, throw out all the broken pens and used-to-be pencils. (This can take a while) Then tackle bent paper clips, used stamps, (rubber and otherwise) broken rubber bands and used staples. Then attack paper pads of all sizes and shapes and any other supplies that you may have stashed but will never use. Exhausted? Well, too bad, because you are not finished and you have to keep going on to step two of “Operation Desk and Drawers.”
Now that you have weeded out those things you don’t need, there should be a lot more room for those things that you do need. This might be a good time to establish drawer boundaries by inserting dividers. Also re-organize anything that you might need closer to you, like a stapler, for example, that might have been at the bottom of a drawer should move up to the top so you don’t have to sift through things to find it. (But you won’t have to because you already completed step one, right?)
Stay tuned for part two. I am exhausted and have to think about just what exactly I am going to do with all these old pens, staples, rubber bands and pencils.
Know anyone who could use them?