Recognizing Hindrances

Some may spring clean, other choose fall cleaning, but for me, every new year, I'm overtaken with the desire to throw open the closets, chase out the dust bunnies and whip this house into the state of immaculate organization.

Of course, I never attain. I'm not sure I want to have a perfectly organized home. I want to enjoy living here. But with my goal this fall to deliberately work on having a home that better fulfills the needs of it's occupants, the work of organizing is on-going.

I've learned a few things about myself through the years. I'm good at starting projects. I love the thrill of pulling out the accumulated stuff, scrubbing down the shelves, purging the useless, and neatly replacing the items.

But it is hard for me to fully finish an organizing project. There is always a pile of miscellaneous items that I don't know what to do with. Maybe they are broken, or missing a part, or just don't belong here, there or anywhere.

So the pile sits, and is shoved from side to side, or pushed in a drawer to be lost until the next organizing binge. The lack of closure to the project brings a feeling of despair. Why dig into another drawer, when I didn't finish this one? How can I start another room, when I don't know what to do with this stuff?

If recognizing the hindrance is half the problem, the other half is removing the hindrance. Maybe this sounds like avoidance, but this fall I found the perfect (for me) solution. I chose an empty corner of the basement to be my catchall.

Of course, I continue to find homes for items as much as possible. Trash and giveaway items have their specific places but any item that I don't know what to do with presently is placed in this basement corner. Maybe some day I can find a perfect place for it. Maybe I'll decide to get rid of the item. But for now, I now where all the miscellaneous homeless items are located. I can't tell you how much this has helped in the past months.

Now I would like to hear from you. What is your greatest hindrance when cleaning and organizing? What have you done to remove the hindrance?