Change: The Office Saga – Part 2

When we left off from the last blog we were talking about downsizing my office because of my spouse. It’s still my husbands fault! If you don’t get that reference, check out the last blog here. This office project upended everything that had been acquired in my life, from birth! I had settled into a spot and called that spot an office. From that space my life revolved until just over two weeks ago. This project was huge! Beyond the physical aspect like moving food pantries, pottery supplies, shelving, desks, and painting; to literally scrubbing my floors on my hands and knees with a kitchen sponge and a slightly larger-than-normal NAIL BRUSH! Thank God I had an extra yoga mat to kneel on. The other aspect was the “things:” gifts given to me never used, school photos and artwork from my children, papers, papers and more papers, paid bill receipts, and past Christmas budget folders (you would be surprised at how many). Attending and then graduating University last year, there were impressive piles from homework I had saved. <Deep Breath>

The past two weeks have been rough, crazy rough. Embracing the feeling that I needed to tackle this now overcame me. With the ability to harness that feeling I became hyper focused, where these things that I was holding on to yet hadn’t touched, sometimes in decades, no longer were going to have a hold over me. Does that mean I don’t like them? No. Does that mean I don’t appreciate them? Also, No. I appreciated these things at the time but now they collect dust no longer serving me. I shifted my focus to becoming very comfortable with the idea of getting rid of these things, shipped to locations other than here… Of course I did not get rid of things such as my children’s photos or artwork, they found a special spot in an organized manner where they could be given to the children when they get older. I became powerful and in charge of my surroundings, not letting the “things” control me!! This is actually one of the toughest and most cleansing experiences I have ever had in my life.

Lets break down this experience, shall we?

What did I do wrong:

• I took it all on at once.

  • Taking on too many projects without a direction of daily tasks, overwhelmed me.

• Spending 8 – 12+ hours per day in that space, not allowing myself acceptable brakes.

  • Without the constant reassurances of progress, I would have burnt out.

• Not really having a plan to begin with but spontaneously started moving things one Saturday morning.

  • A rudimentary plan at least would have kept me on schedule and helped plan for a more organized move.

• Wholly focusing on the reorganization project and not allowing myself time to work, blog or film.

  • Unless you do this for a living, organizing was not paying the bills.

• Taking myself away from my family, trying to clean and organize every waking hour, 7 days a week.

• Being stubborn.

  • Not utilizing people in my life more to help me.

  • Doing most of it on my own, with a little help from a very good friend.

What did I do right:

• I allowed my ADD self to jump from project to project playing to my strengths.

  • Different projects = a variety of things to do per day, which is good for me.

• Using a loose unorganized list of projects.

  • I allowed my mind to think up these lists while not sleeping at night.

• I created a vision in my head of the outcome.

  • Not taking the time to write it down personally saved me time.

    • Overthinking and over planning are both shortcomings for me.

• Compiling many videos or blogs to listen to while working was something to look forward to.

• Gifting myself little wins, by finding new spaces and opening up more areas every day.

  • Giving myself positive feedback by stopping and looking around once in a while to see progress.

  • Once an area was clean, I was unable to stage future projects in that space.

    • This kept the area clean and a constant reminder of progress.

• Incorporating plants into my office as soon as space allowed brought new life and warmth to the area.

• Extending Grace to myself.

  • Understanding that this is going to take longer than wanted.

• Actively leaning into my hyper focused self and harnessing that power and energy.

  • The energy in knowing that this project was going to be life changing was wonderful!

• Allowing myself to grieve as I re-homed some things that had mattered to me in the past.

As you can see there are conflicting things in those lists. There are times where my weakness ended up being a strength. Weaknesses such as: making a mental list of tasks when unable to sleep, taking on multiple complex projects at once allowing me to start a new task when an old task became boring or I lost my vision, and not writing a plan down in order to save time. A key take-away from this is any project you take on is your own. The alterations you make to accommodate your needs, that are not in line with the “norms,” are a good thing. Have the foresight to see a need to pivot, while allowing yourself time and grace to do so. If you are grieving deeply about losing certain items give yourself a place to store those items, in an organized manor, that won’t clutter your newly organized space. Setting aside beloved items with which you cannot part provides rest instead of stress and the option to remove those items later. This thought bucks accepted norms when downsizing, but in our world there are no real norms, just forced perspective.

This project was not easy but I’m hoping through what I did you too can find some inspiration to try a bit of organizing. Perhaps not your entire basement, instead a smaller project like a closet or a dresser drawer. If you could take the time to dump out one dresser drawer, organizing it while watching a 1/2 a hour program, you might be surprised by the end of that program half of your dresser drawers are clean or maybe all of them. What a blessing. If you try to see what can be done in a 1/2 hour, two to three times a week, focusing on small spaces, in 12 months your whole house could be completely reorganized, even downsized. An added bonus is you could be a lot happier within the space you’re living.

Stick with me because the next blog is going to go through some solid advice, in easy to consume steps, of what you can do to help yourself begin to organize.

Blessings,

Sarah

So now it’s your turn, what do you think? Did I do it wrong? Was there some brilliance in the way I tackled this project, beginners luck or would you have handled it differently? I’m curious! Let me know what you think down below, or keep the communication going and send me an email at [email protected].