A few thoughts on overwhelm – taming the paper monster

This photograph is from Einstein's office in Princeton 

from Life magazine in 1955.

I’ve noticed that the amount of overwhelm I feel at any given point in my life is directly proportional to the state of my office. As in the piles (paper, books, notebooks, receipts, etc.).  I like to tell myself the piles are a symptom of my busyness, and that when things settle down (you know, that mysterious point in the future when everything will fall into place, a magical rhythm will assert itself and all your affairs will be in order). Ha! 

I realize that’s just not going to miraculously happen. The problem is, there are SO many other things I’d rather be doing than sorting and filing my piles of paper. So I tell myself I’ll wait for a rainy day. Well, we just had a whole weekend of rainy days, and somehow my office still looks the same. Hmmm, something needs to change.

I suppose I could just carry on and let the piles be the piles. Recently, I saw a picture of Einstein’s desk the day he died– and he made mine look like the pinnacle of neatness.  So I am in excellent company, I tell myself.

The truth of the matter is though, that I plain just don’t like a messy desk. I feel disorganized. I feel cluttered. I can’t find things when I need them. I can’t think clearly. And so…. What to do? I turn once again to Marie Kondo’s little gem of a book The life-changing magic of tidying up.

So, armed with a stack of new file folders and a fresh roll of tape for my trusty labeller, I am ready.  Deep breath, OK, I’m just going to tackle it.

Here we go. Page 95.

“Sorting papers

Rule of thumb – discard everything.”

Page 96.

”My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away.”

“What?”  I say to myself in stunned disbelief. “But…… surely that can’t be right.”  “What if I need it?”

Well, it turns out there are a couple of key things you really do need to keep – you know, like tax receipts. Beyond that, Kondo claims, you really don’t need it.

Wow – that gave me pause. Certainly not what I was expecting. But you know how they say that stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results? Well, I have been going through decades of periodic sorting and filing, and yet here I am again. So, I will trade in my file folders for a large recycling bin.

I’ll let you know how it goes!