Day 18 of the 30-Day Challenge: Creative Movement:
Task: To declutter my workspace.
Reason for Task: I NEED HELP! I can’t efficiently get my work done without an intervention. Today was the day that I picked to absolutely despise my roving workspace. And, I had to stop all content creation production and do something about it. I mean I’m not the most organized and tidy person, but even I have a threshold of clutter madness that I’m able to bear before halting all other matters to give the clutter a major deep cleaning.
Duration of Task: 1-1/2 days. I’ll easily finish it up the next morning.
Outcome of Task: I have the majority of the decluttering done but need to finish up some remaining scrutinizing, sorting, shredding, and filing of paperwork the next day. And I’m in a very good position to do so. I, basically, took my filing system and gave it a good, old-fashioned deep cleaning. It was totally overdue.
You’d just have to see it to believe it. I don’t know how I’ve functioned this long with my mess of an office space. Since I work from home, I have several different areas throughout my house where I work. Needless to say, my roving cart, carrying my miscellaneous work supplies, tends to be a laptop backpack, most times. I’ve just been jamming everything in there and moving my pack from one work area to another work area, as needed.
And when I participate in this unorthodox way of creative content nomad living, I tend to have all my sticky notes, notebooks, and loose leaf pieces of paper in no apparent order. The physical organization (surrounding my content) has pretty much been non-existent for several months now. I don’t know why I struggle with this so much. It’s not like I relish in the game of “I can’t find what I’m looking for because I don’t know where I put it”. It’s so frustrating to spend 5 minutes looking for something that I should be able to go straight to in a matter of seconds.
Why can’t I naturally vibe with my organizational efforts?
Anyway, I know I need to get a handle on them but steadily let things get into complete disarray. And then I have to spend a whole day and a half trying to rectify the mess I made. If only I could trick my brain into creating an organized space for all my creative equipment/supplies/paperwork, keep all the things in their proper places, and add new items to the spaces slotted for them; then I’d be golden.
So, that’s just what I did on the first day of this decluttering task — at least the first part of the above statement, anyway. I created an “organized space for all my creative equipment, supplies, and paperwork”. Now, I just need to keep a daily routine of keeping all the organized items in their appropriate places and add new items to their slotted spaces going forward.
And that’s the challenge with this task — the ongoing part of it is what always gets me. I’ll go through the motions of getting my organizational jam on; and then, I eventually peter out and get to a point of no return, where I simply can’t work in the hot mess I’ve created.
However, today was the day to restore some organizational balance to my workspace, so I can feel good about the working environment in which I dwell and be successfully productive within it. I simply need to repeat day 18’s task for the rest of my life. No pressure.
Practical Application of Day 18 for Your Life: Sometimes, you just have to stop what you’re doing and address the mess that surrounds you. You’ll feel like you can accomplish more when your workspace works for you instead of against you. And if you can just keep on top of your organizational efforts . . . consistently . . . each day . . . then you’ll find yourself efficiently functioning in an environment that fosters your professional growth.
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