What is it with flat surfaces?
Have you ever noticed that flat surfaces attract clutter. I believe that if you have a house that has only a coffee table and one chair, and no one ever visits and no one lives there, that within a month the coffee table will be piled high with clutter — usually paper based clutter. Really, it happens to every flat surface in the world. I bet if you traveled to the center of the salt flats you’d find a huge pile of paper based clutter or tumble weeds (wood pulp or paper based in a squinted viewpoint). All flat surfaces attract clutter the minute you turn your back.
It seems lately hat my life is being taken over by a burning desire to have at least one flat surface in the house that is not cluttered. I’ve been clearing the dining room table for months now. Today, I achieved partial table top. I mean, I could actually see the wood surface of the table in places. Really, it’s been under so much stuff: books, papers, notes to self, magazines, knitting (usually socks), pens, envelopes, unopened mail, opened mail, various piles of mail, catalogs, …. I’m sure you get the picture. [Note the picture is the azalea bushes outside — no one gets to see the huge pile of clutter on the table because I’m sure as bad as you can imagine it — it’s worse.]
Last year I started to live to a plan to open and deal with all mail on the day it arrived. It either goes into the stack to get paid or the recycle bin or, if it has personal info, into the shredder, or it gets answered and then into the trash, a file, or the shredder. That seems to work pretty well but my desk is now the dining room table and things have gotten out of hand. Monday, I decided this has got to stop. So yesterday and today all breaks have been spent clearing piles off the table and putting them where they belong. And today, I struck wood surface. I’m hoping by the end of tomorrow to have the whole surface cleaned to the point that I can have out my datebook and a notebook and put it away each night and have a clear table.
Sigh…it’s a wonderful thing to have a goal, a dream to work towards. It’s even better if that dream is achievable. I do so want to win one surface free of the flat surface clutter curse.