Little Bit?

I'm not tidy. Cleaning and culling are of no interest to me. When I had a nice-paying job it wasn't such an issue. Our house was new and spacious. we were too busy to notice the mess, and if things got really disgusting we could always hire somebody, right?

That was 14 years ago. Since then I've lost a job and we've gained lots and lots of stuff. Our cat population went from 2 to 4, which adds to the mess in too many ways. There's no money to hire somebody now, and I'm too broken to lift, haul, or scrub, so we've hit critical mass. There isn't a room in the house that isn't filthy and stacked high with junk.

"Just do a little bit every day," is the advice that I get from people who haven't seen the place. It sounds good. But if the goal is to drain the swamp, and you remove a teacup of swampwater every day, the swamp will never be drained by the time you die. (Which could be in an alligator-related accident if you frequently stand within teacup's reach of a swamp.)

Yesterday an alligator bit me in the backside. My check blanks are somewhere in this accumulation and I need them to pay next month's bills. I think I chucked them into a lidless box. This year I've been chucking everything into lidless boxes. The lidded boxes I've 'chucked stuff into' for the past dozen years are too easy to close and stack other stuff on. Trust me. So I'm trying for something less permanent.

I've searched the lidless boxes before, but yesterday I decided to go above and beyond. Instead of just digging through the boxes, I sorted the contents of each into 'toss' vs. 'keep.' Granted, I should have done that before I chucked everything into the boxes. Then again, I shouldn't chuck stuff in boxes in the first place.

The good news is that after 'tossing', I ended up with 2 less boxes! That's not a "little bit" by my standards. That's enough of a dent to make a difference. It took several hours. That's more like using a big bucket to drain a pool. It's still a slow, painful process, but it can be done.

So, my fellow prisoners-of-your-own-clutter, here is my advice. Next time somebody advises you to, "Do a little bit every day," push them into a swamp with a teacup!  Or if that seems too extreme, just excuse yourself and get to work! You need a bucket, my brethren, not a teacup.