Sometimes you can sort through the trash that’s collected. Read through the pile of magazines unread. Open each unopened envelope, email, Reader subscription, each bill, each “how have you been,” or “here’s how I am” correspondence, each plea for donation, each statement of profit or loss over time.
But sometimes it’s too much. You have to accept that you can’t really catch up on everything that you’ve let collect, gather dust, pass you by even as it looms there undealt with. You’ve got to just toss most of it, and collect just the most recent things, and try to work backwards from there, while trying to keep the piles from starting to collect again. You’ve got to hope there’s nothing too important that you’ve missed in the pile—that you had to toss, because you just couldn’t deal with wading through it. You’d literally drown in it if you tried. And if there was something important in there that you’ve tossed, you’ve got to be ready to say, later, when it comes back to bite you, “look, I’m sorry, I just missed it, that’s all.”
You’ve got to decide how much you can sort, how much you can keep to look over later, and how much, right now, you need to just toss so you have someplace clean to place the next round of life—that this time, you promise yourself, you won’t let stack so high that the piles fall over and get in your way.
Doing lots of mental and physical housecleaning this weekend.
You’re right–sometimes that is the only thing to do–and then just try to stay on top of things for the future. I know the housecleaning thing is metaphorical as well as concrete, but I do have a concrete mail tip for you.
If you don’t have to bring the mail in every day, don’t. Wait until you’re prepared to deal with it. Then go through the mail right next to the recycle bin and get rid of whatever you don’t want. If you have bills that you don’t do online open them and write the date due on the envelope in Sharpie–then keep them in a basket on your desk. It sounds like a lot of work but it saves so much time in the long run.
Jenn @ Juggling Lifes last blog post..Overheard Around The Protest March
thats how I feel sometimes at work — all the needless cc’s and hard copies of stuff in my mailbox I know how to open in the Share drive if I need it.…
The stacks and piles. Ugh.
Cheri @ Blog This Mom!s last blog post..And Then They Made Me Clean Latrines
To this I can relate! Last year, right around Christmas, I got it in my head that everything would be right with my little world if, and only if, I read every single word in every single back issue of Boston Magazine I had been putting aside for when I had time. I actually spent HOURS sitting in my “reading chair” barreling through articles. Sadly, I actually somehow did feel a little better when the last word of the last old issue was read.
This year, just recently, I started to get that feeling again …and I gathered up all the old, half-read magazines and stuffed them in the recycling bin — on recycling day, to make darn sure they truly left the house. That also felt good — allowing myself to be ok with not catching up.
Dude. I am SO with you on that. You do what you can, and the rest of us in the blogosphere will back you up.
The Cheap Chicks last blog post..Sounds Like The Plague, But It’s Not