I never got over to my company office today, despite needing to do some major cleaning out there. Instead, I decided to tackle the chaos in my customer office, which is really where I spend my time. My theory was that I could free up space to bring more stuff over there, simplifying the office space problem. And, also, it was just annoying me to have all this junk lying around from my predecessors. It's one thing when it's my own clutter and chaos.
What I discovered is that the two people who had the office before I did never touched any of the stuff the person before them had left. So there were things like stacks of to-do lists from 7 years ago. Then, there was simply stuff. Like computer speakers and a rolling briefcase and a large hunk of metal I can't identify. And a coffee maker. I went over to Jackie (our secretary) and told her, "I'm having a garage sale!"
Jackie's solution was for us to move things to a corner of the admin room, which is mostly filled with trash to begin with. That trash is in the form of burn bags, because we never make it anywhere near having a paperless society. I've filled three more burn bags so far from stuff in my office. Since we're an office of record, I can't get rid of anything that looks like an official document. But those stacks of to-do lists are getting cremated!
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel