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3/23/2000
Get
It Together
-
by Liz Kelley Kerstens, CGRS
This
columns is posted on the Clooz.com Web site with
permission of
MyFamily.com. The
column was originally posted on the Ancestry.com
Web site.
National Clutter Awareness Week
This week we celebrate the beginning of Spring, which
means that next week we celebrate National Clutter
Awareness Week! What better way to start fresh in a new
Spring season than to clear away the clutter from your
home or office? (Well, there probably are better ways, but
this column is about organizing.)
Don’t expect any time off from work because of this
special week, and the only gifts you’ll receive are
those you give yourself. But if you’re sincere about
getting organized, why not capitalize on a week devoted to
reducing clutter?
Just as in previous columns, I suggest that you define
a goal or goals for the week and post them in a visible
location on your computer monitor or refrigerator. Look
around you. Identify the one area that truly qualifies for
the label "clutter." Why not set a goal of
eliminating that troublesome clutter area by the end of
next week. The gift you will give yourself is a little
piece of mind and less stress about an area that you see
regularly but just never devote any time to.
I’m going to publicly set my goal of organizing my
office book cases. These book cases are actually not in
bad shape, but I’ve been rearranging my office and
identifying some unneeded books for donation. Therefore, I’ve
got holes here and there and I’d like to finish this
project so I can better utilize the space. The other end
of the organizing challenge that I’m posing to myself is
to catalog the books so I actually know what I have and
where to find them. I started doing this several years
ago, but never kept up the system. And like any good
genealogist, I’ve got a constant stream of new books
entering my shelves that need to be assigned their own
homes. The reality with a project like this is that I,
like most people, have a finite space for storing books.
My husband hasn’t yet approved the addition of a room
for storing all of my genealogical supplies, so I have to
learn to live in the allotted space. That means that I
have to periodically cull the books I have and part with
those I no longer need. Those usually fall in the category
of anything fiction, since I don’t have time or the
desire to read fiction any more. I’ve also learned to
trust my public library and historical museum. If there’s
a book that I think the library or museum could use, I
will frequently donate it to them knowing that they’ll
have it available to me on their shelves in case I need
access to it again. This thinking has helped free up a lot
of space since I moved into a smaller house.
National Organize Your Home Office Day was celebrated
yesterday, 22 March. But, it’s not too late! Maybe you
could find one thing in your office that you could
de-clutter today, in addition to your clutter-busting goal
for next week. How about your filing? Have you caught up
on cleaning out your to-be-filed box? What shape is your
inbox in? Sometimes we have to force ourselves to work on
dreaded office functions just to get caught up. It’s
hard, but you’ll feel so much better once you begin–and
sometimes just beginning gets you past the inactivity
stage.
If you still feel like you need a nudge to get you
going, check out these links on organizing tips:
"Getting Organized: 10 Tips to Help You on Your
Way," by Lisa Kanarek
"Elbow Room: Making the Most of Your Small
Office," by Cynthia E. Griffin
And, if you feel that your home office is a bit on the
bizarre side, HomeOfficeLife.com wants to hear from you.
The organization is holding a "Search for the Most
Unusual Home Office" contest until 31 March 2000.
Prizes include scanners, voice recorders, digital cameras,
and more. If you think your office is unusual, visit the
contest site at
http://www.homeofficelife.com/contest.html.
Now, we’ve got some work to do, so log off the
Internet and start planning how you’ll celebrate
National Clutter Awareness Week.
Elizabeth Kelley
Kerstens, CGRS,
is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing,
editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’
newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the
electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a
frequent contributor to Ancestry. She can be
reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com.
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