reminders of the undone.

Sometimes it feels like everywhere I look, I see reminders of things that aren't done. There are dishes in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor, clean clothes in the laundry basket AND the dryer, mutant weeds all over the flower beds, and tools and materials for craft projects spread out all over the table.

My usual reaction to something like this is to start writing things down. Do a mind dump and get everything out on paper, starting making to-do lists to plan how I'm going to tackle everything. But the reminders seem to come faster than I can process them - this is the part where I start to get overwhelmed. And not in a good way - this is the kind of overwhelmed where I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

With the mind dump and to-do lists not really helping, its time to move on to the next strategy - a grand purge. With a deadline. My hope is that clearing out the physical clutter will not only make it easier to finish the things that I need to, but will help to create the mental space I need to be productive, instead of overwhelmed.

This idea was actually inspired by a post from Young House Love (and a desire to continue to work on clearing out the clutter in my house). Their initial goal was to get rid of 100 things before moving in December. Just a few days later, they posted the results - 222 things gone.

I'm using my parents' Thanksgiving visit as my deadline, giving me just over a week to finish, and I'm keeping a growing list of my refrigerator to help me stay motivated. I'll post my results next week.