The Clutter Savior

Today our clutter savior made a visit!

We arranged for her to come for a four-hour stretch bright and early this morning - starting at 9:30. We got right down to business, and although I have to leave two hours in to go babysit, we made a lot of progress in the first half, and as I saw later, even more in the second half. I've found myself gazing around our living room tonight (the starting point and only room we worked on today) with wild technicolor dreams of how it will look when it's complete.

The bookshelves will no longer stand at awkward, claustrophobia-inducing angles so as to block all natural light! Our couches will seat friends and admirers! The sliding glass doors will gleamingly welcome my book and sun hat fantasies onto the balcony!

Things are at a strange in-between stage, because as our organizer said, things have to get worse before they get better. Her basic takeaway tip for today was that you must de-clutter first, and then rearrange things in your newfound space once you have cleared it out. It's simple enough, and I think it's a good principle for us. Everything she helped us do today was common sense, and nothing we couldn't do on our own. But something showed me that it really helps to a) have a dedicated chunk of time to buckle down and de-clutter, b) feel that a stern but friendly Slavic woman is pressuring you to de-clutter, and c) basically have an authoritative, third-party figure help you figure out what you should and shouldn't keep. It's really gotten to the point where that's what we need.

She was the voice of reason today, helping us sacrifice the many duplicates of silly things we have but also conceding that some of the things we own could be kept. I think today was a good investment, and the results show just how much we needed that outside help. The next step before we can continue de-cluttering is to drive all our "donate" and "electronic recycling" bags to Goodwill and the e-cycling place. That we can do as soon as the rearview mirror in our car is fixed... After a wander around Berkeley with friends yesterday, I returned to the car to find the mirror detached from the windshield,  dangling down pathetically. Weird and scary to drive back on I-24 unable to easily glance behind me! The car's at the shop now for some TLC, poor thing.