Week 4 – Papers
Marie was not kidding: these categories are getting harder. In her book, Marie Kondo explains that you should address each of five categories in a specific order, starting with the easiest (clothes) and ending with the hardest (sentimental items).[1] The reason for this order is that as you tackle the easier categories, you’ll get in the habit of “joy-checking” items, so you’ll have honed your skills by the time you get to the more difficult categories and limit your risk of stalling out.
Week 4 is Papers, and that includes anything and everything you can think of that fits that description: business cards, manuals, greeting cards, newspapers, financial documents, medical records, and so on. I had a lot more trouble than I expected this week because there are so many sentimental items in this house… that are paper. I made a lot of progress, but I have to admit that I am emotionally exhausted.
Image credit: [2]
Retention and Perfectionism
When it comes to sentimental paper items, greeting cards top my list. I have Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, birthday, and thank you cards that date back years, but they all bring me joy – either that or I feel guilty getting rid of them (especially the ones from family members who aren’t with us anymore). In addition to cards, I’ve got photos, newspaper clippings, admission letters to schools I’ve attended, maps of foreign cities I’ve visited, and – as mentioned previously – all of my sentimental receipts. (I wish I were joking about that last one.)
I also have non-sentimental things that I’m not sure what to do with. I’ve written about hoarding over the past few weeks and how I display a lot of the symptoms. One of the reasons people hold onto useless items is that they’re afraid of getting rid of something that they might need.[3] And for me, old bank account and portfolio statements fall into that category. (Do I really need a stock prospectus from 2016 at this point? I don’t know, but I had one!) Tax documents, yes, should be kept, but for how long? I have always erred on the side of caution lest something important be thrown away by accident. Case in point: my car title narrowly escaped the recycling bin this week.
My perfectionism makes me my own worst enemy in this regard. Perfectionists are notorious procrastinators because if we’re going to do something, it’s worth doing right.[4] And if it’s worth doing right, we need enough time to do it. And “enough time” never seems to happen. For years I have stacked mail in piles saying “I’ll sort through that when I have time” – and for that reason, I have handfuls of mail shoved everywhere: they’ve been shuffled around the house when cleaning and crammed into boxes labeled “Misc” when moving. (This week I found unopened mail that has been with me through two moves!)
Energy and Motivation
Marie’s tidying tasks, unsurprisingly, took me about twice as long as I had planned. However, I was very proud of myself for staying on track and working through a massive pile of papers that rivaled my clothing mountain from two weeks ago. I worked about two hours each night, and it was around that time I usually started losing my edge. If I got to the point at which I knew I should get rid of something but couldn’t bring myself to do it, I set it back on the pile and called it quits for the night.
I’m not going to lie: this has been a long four weeks for me. I can’t believe I’m halfway through the program (because I’m certainly not halfway through the mess), but it has been a tedious, difficult process, and I don’t have the energy or motivation to do it. I recognize that I am experiencing a lot of emotional withdrawals without many emotional deposits these days: my job, while rewarding, is emotionally draining; we are finally getting some warm weather and sun, but for the first few weeks of the challenge, it was cold and grey, and I was not getting any exercise or vitamin D; we are rapidly approaching one year in quarantine, and I desperately miss my friends and family but also feel exhausted by virtual interactions.
I have felt like I am really scraping the bottom of the motivation barrel to begin with, before even spending time each day to tidy. Nevertheless, I forged ahead (mostly because I am holding myself publicly accountable through this blog). Christian was wonderfully supportive throughout all of it, one evening marveling at the fact that I worked 10 hours, then cooked dinner from scratch, and then spent two hours culling papers that have been in my life longer than he has.
After: the “keep” pile (that whole front row is entirely blank notepads and greeting cards – I’ll never have to buy more of either again)
With this week behind me, I feel good for having done it, but I am feeling exhausted and a little discouraged that while clothes, books, and papers are all in order, the place still looks like a disaster area. I warned Christian at the beginning of this process that things would look a lot worse before they got better, but it’s still difficult to put in a lot of consistent work and not see much progress.
Sorting and Storing
Marie’s method this week involves assembling all the papers in the house, then sorting them into categories, and then joy-checking within categories. I decided that I only wanted to touch each thing only once, so I joy-checked and sorted as I went. As with clothing, it was appalling to see how much paper had mounted up throughout the house, staying inconspicuous as little bits here and there.
There were some things I was not willing to part with, as mentioned above: newspaper articles written by me or about my work, documents from places I’ve traveled (ticket stubs and brochures, for example), and all the cards I’ve received that remind me I am valued. I probably kept more than I should have (there’s that word again!), but I probably wound up keeping about one third of the original volume, and I think that is impressive for someone with this much anxiety around discarding.
As for the other two thirds of the paper mountain, it was almost entirely recyclable, meaning I will be taking it to a paper recycling bin, not putting it single-stream curbside pickup. In my first blog anniversary post from February 2020, I talked about the benefits of using an Abitibi (or other paper recycler) bin near you, if one is available.[5] Abitibi takes most types of paper and paperboard with some exceptions (like phone books), and the one box and three bags I filled this week will be going to the one near our house. If you have one near you, please feel free to let me know, and I will update this list of locations:
Fortunately I had some hanging file folders that had lived in a filing cabinet in my first Pittsburgh home. They have remained in an untouched bag for the last nine years and stayed that way through two moves. Now they are storing the majority of my paper “keep” pile, hanging in a banker’s box I had in the living room. (“Waste not, want not” is getting strong reinforcement in this case!)
One thing that remained entirely intact in this process is a box full of cards that Christian and I received when we got married. However, instead of sitting under a pile of clutter upstairs, the box now has a place of honor on the bookshelf, with a bow around it. Seeing the box there, even without opening it, I am reminded of all the wonderful people in our lives who love and support us. That alone is a balm when we can’t be with them in person.
Tune in next week when I try to tackle the biggest and most unwieldy category: Miscellaneous. I fully expect to sort through several, but not all, sub-categories (e.g. toiletries, kitchen tools, electronics, and accoutrements from our many hobbies). Hopefully I’ll at least be able to make a dent.
Have you parted with difficult-to-discard items? I’d love to hear how it went for you.
Thanks for reading!
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22318578-the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up
[2] https://konmari.com/konmari-marie-kondo-tidy-challenge-week-four/
[3] https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/hoarding-basics
[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-and-sensibility/201003/break-perfectionism-procrastination-connection
[5] https://radicalmoderate.online/paper-recycling-in-pittsburgh/
0 Comments