What? You didn’t think my clutter problem was limited to my house, did you?

Well I was inspired to straighten up the mess today. This picture doesn’t do it justice. It was worse than it looks here!

First I tossed a pile of Post-its that mostly just nonsense at this point. Then I sorted through the paperwork. I often print out project requirements when I’m working on them so I can take notes. But I have electronic copies — there’s no need to save them once the project is finished!

I do have a couple of piles that I need to sort through, but at least they’re neat now. Once the surface was clean, I gave it a good wipe-down. Wow, it needed that. All those papers were hiding lots of crumbs!

Now just my notebook and printouts for current projects are by my side. Much better!

I just found out an acquaintance will be coming over tomorrow night … so I figured I should focus on some general cleaning tonight!

I’ve already gone through the mail pile (again) (it wasn’t that bad this time), put away items that didn’t belong on the kitchen table, wiped down the bathroom counter, and brought some books upstairs that were cluttering the living room.

I’ve still got more work to do. It won’t be perfect, but I’ll do what I can until bedtime!

But I found what I was looking for!

Tonight I sorted through my choral music. I had to find the music I need now that we’re rehearsing for the holidays, so it was the perfect opportunity to reorganize.

I store my music in the gray file box seen above, and it’s safe to say I don’t always put things away promptly. Or ever. That pile to the left of the file box is also music; the red folder at the bottom is Christmas music. From last year. There was a lot of stuff just shoved in the back of the box behind the hanging folders. I found a rehearsal schedule from 2005!

I sorted through a large pile of papers, a lot that were duplicates or things I don’t think I’ll need again. That can go, freeing up a little more space. The rest is now sorted alphabetically in hanging folders. It had folders before, but I added a few more since it was a bit too stuffed before.

Then I shoved the file box under the corner table so it’s out of the way.

That large pile of papers next to the shredder is waiting to be shredded. It can only handle a few sheets at a time!

I was looking around for a portable project tonight. I’ve got a lot to watch on my DVR and I wanted to multitask!

I wasn’t really in the mood to sort through piles of paperwork, but I came across another issue in the office that would work.

Somehow these old storage bins back from the early apartment days wound up storing some of my running clothes (mostly socks) that I hadn’t gotten around to pairing up and putting away. Since there were also three pairs of gloves in there, this pile has been building up for a while!

I matched 24 pairs of socks and put them away. I also folded and put away the three tank tops, two running skirts, and pair of shorts that was in there.

And then I got out all of the stray socks from the laundry pile and tried to pair them up.

But I still have a lot of orphans.

I’m not giving up hope until we get to the bottom of Mt. Laundry. (But I did throw out several that were not worth saving!)