tick... tick... BOOM

[rmd]

below the surface of conscious thought this morning:

hm. there's some clutter visible when i look in this direction.
(later)
hm. there's a fair bit of clutter visible when i look in this other direction. i should do something about that.
(later)
hey... wait a minute. there's clutter over there, too. it's definitely time to do something about this, too.

(somewhere, in regis' brain, a bit flips)

what bubbles up to the surface:
OH MY GOD MY HOUSE IS A PIT I NEED TO CLEAN EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW.

must prioritize to deal with the things that are enraging me first. then i can deal with things that are merely annoying.

Comments

clutter

[jlw.livejournal.com]

Check this (http://www.radioopensource.org/spring-cleaning/) out.

[johnromkey.livejournal.com]

"The Pit and the Pendulum"...

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

God, that is SO my life. I live in this contented little bubble until one day when I need something and I can't find it ...

Then the madness and rage kick in and I seriously consider renting a dumpster and chucking my entire life into it. ;)

[poodlgrl.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my daily world.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how it works for me, too. :-}

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

a while ago I went thru exactly what you are. I finally bit the bullet and hired a cleaning service. Never regretted it. Do you believe that one of the reasons I didn't want to hire them was because "it was too messy"??? >>duh!<< They don't CARE. Sex toys? they get essentially ignored. Probably with a grin on their face, but it's just another "thing". they won't throw away anything even vaguely important. They just take those horrible messes of papers and pile them Neatly. And the dirt and dust gets cleaned up. They vaccum and mop floors.

Basically, they "kick start" my cleaning process every time they come. The only thing I have to worry about is making sure all my unpaid bills get put someplace (in a drawer, etc) where they won't get "cleaned up" by the cleaners, because if they get put into a "pile" I'll never find them.

[scottro.livejournal.com]

Sounds like my life.

Good luck, and may you rid yourself of clutter.

77

[ceo]

Your journal title seems particularly apropos here. :-) I do the same thing, particularly with my desk and my workshop. In both cases, particularly the shop, if there's more than a minimal amount of mess I can't get any work done.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've used a cleaner sporadically before, mostly for the times when it feels like i'll never actually get to the point where i can dust things or wax the kitchen floor.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

it's a quote from this (http://www.monkeybagel.com/pumas.html) excellent rant about managing sysadmins.

One unfortunate truth of the profession of system administration is that we wouldn't enjoy it so much if it didn't reward its practitioners for being lateral thinkers with a predilection for high-intensity short-duration incident-based problem solving, or, as we say in the trade, "Triggerhappy psycho-freakazoid gloryhound powermongers with stress-induced facial tics."

Re: clutter

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like that. There is indeed quite the industry in selling people "clutter-busting" services, ranging from the pragmatic to the therapeutic, and while I don't dispute the need of people to bust their clutter or the value of the services, it's all very March-of-Dimes, you know? Treat the symptoms but don't eliminate the disease; then what will we do to make a living??? Cure the culture of consumption, and you will cure the clutter, for many people.

Now, my house is a mess for other reasons altogether ;-) The "clutter" isn't unused consumer stuff; most of it is small repair projects that need doing, and papers that need dealing with and filing. A big injection of money would help both of these, but as it is, I expect I'll be having a day of glueing, nailing, screwing, wiring, patching, and filing, after which things will be much better.

Re: clutter

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah. i figured out what it was that had set me off the other day, and a fair bit of it was just empty boxes that i hadn't broken down and dealt with yet, so a good recycling sweep took care of most of the stuff getting me nonlinear. but i continued with the momentum and ended up pulling a whole bunch of stuff out of a closet and did some outcrufting and got rid of stuff i won't need anymore. (utility records from two places back? GONE!)