OK, you know I’ve taken to bi-weekly reports on my visits to the land of organization. Today I have two major discoveries to report:

a) Those TV shows cheat. They have a place to take everything out of the room to before bringing only the Right Things back into the room. Real people, like me, have to “organize in place” for lack of a batter term. The secret appears to be to mark off a section of the room and spend your time on it today, then mark off another section tomorrow, etc. A journey of 1,000 miles begins with but a single step.

b) ….but it’s not a journey unless you keep stepping. The upside of that is, however, that this can get contagious. If you create a small patch or order, and maintain it, areas which seemed perfectly fine will slowly start to annoy you. The desire festers within you, and soon you find yourself unable to accept the level of chaos that used to be “normal” in your world.

Progress report: well over 2/3 of the floor cleared normally (this ebbs and flows as I create piles of things to be taken to other locations in the house or disposed of entirely) and most of my desk (same story, as I create piles on it of things that need to be computerized or otherwise acted upon before going away).

Other discoveries:
I have roughtly 40 linear feet of chess books in this room (this is separate from the chess club library that I keep in the basement, as those books technically don’t belong to me). Add in the theology shelves and they amount to more than half of the occupied shelves in this room. And the interesting piece: I don’t have enough of either!. (If you don’t understand that, you’re not a Book Person.)

If keep a copy of one or two episodes of neat on the DVR, I can gain energy from one of them wherenever I get bogged down.