Quick! Do you like to file? Do you like the lovely vista of file folders all neatly labeled, sorted and placed in the cabinet in a perfect logical order? No? Neither do I. In fact I detest filing and everything associated with it. Except I do like Avery sticky labels. But that’s IT.
We do not have a junk drawer in the kitchen, despite many insidious attacks and sneaky inroads by D–e. Instead we have junk tables, or stuff-collecting flat surfaces. Here is one in our office.
Stuff-Collecting Table
In all fairness to D–e, most of the stuff on this table is mine. Notebooks are my business filings, our financial stuff, some catalogs I thought to order from, miscellaneous papers, coupons and grocery list. Dave is responsible for all the pottery. He listed it on Art Fire then left it all around the house.
The other tables are in the kitchen eating area (full of stuff and doomed to be that way forever), the pool table downstairs (collects shipping boxes) and the counters in the bar and downstairs kitchen which get miscellaneous groceries, cat stuff, canning stuff and shipping supplies. The kitchen/bar includes a table and counters and I’m lumping it all together.
My first step was to make room in the filing cabinet for papers. It was overflowing.
File Cabinet to Clean Out
This is the four-drawer vertical file I inherited from my Mom and Dad. They had two and one brother got one and I got this one. It is a good one, nice and heavy, and has lots of hanging files. My Dad filed everything into folders with neatly typed labels . I don’t know whether he like doing it or just liked everything neat and organized.
When I got it I cleaned out some of the stuff like UPS and USPS mailing labels, things we would never use, and gave my siblings each the folders that had cards and such that Mom kept from each of us. That left a little room which I quickly took over for the reams of paperwork that investment companies like to send. And the paperwork for buying the house. And the papers for all the fix-ups, major purchases, car repairs, insurance. And the tax copies.
That left me with about 1/2 inch of space for all the retirement paperwork, clearly not enough. That meant time to clean!
After a couple hours of sorting and shredding I have a big box of paper shred to put on the garden as mulch. Plus half a drawer with folders for all the important things and most of the stuff is even in the right folder! (Albeit with hand-written labels.)
This was more a patch job, just enough to make some room. I have good intentions to do the rest later this summer, or the next time I need another few inches.
Leave a Reply