My uber-organized and energetic friend and neighbor, Tara, has been lending her sorting talents to my basement SHED project. We worked together for 1 hour on Wednesday and 1 hour on Thursday and have accomplished more in those 2 hours than I could have imagined possible. All for the cost of a coffee and a bagel at our neighborhood coffee shop, Nancy's Bagel Grounds. You can't beat the price!
I've made several trips to the recycling station and I have a massive SHED pile in the basement that is destined for a Spring yard sale and/or charitable donation -- and it's still growing. I'll post some pictures of the "Out" pile later; but for now, I offer you this photo of a stack of out-dated travel books and a box of old paper files -- mostly law-related stuff! -- that I fed to the recycling dumpster yesterday:
Woo Hoo! What a feeling!
I'm divesting myself of a lot of stuff in this project. Stuff just the presence of which weighs me down. And getting rid of the extra weight is very freeing.
Remember, this exfoliation SHEDing project is not just about de-cluttering or organizing. There are many differences between organizing and SHEDing. One of the differences Julie Morgenstern offers in her book When Organizing Isn't Enough SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life has special meaning to me at this stage in my career journey:
Organizing is about identifying what's important to you and giving yourself access to it. SHEDing is about getting rid of the old and obsolete so that you can have space to discover what's important to you. (p. 11)
This box of legal career related stuff is particularly significant as it is yet another manifestation of letting go letting go of my old career in favor of the new and yet-to-be discovered. (There will be more, trust me, I just haven't gotten to those boxes yet!)
I'm off to a great start of SHEDing (thanks Julie!) and Making Under My March (thanks Jess!) and am happy to share with you this small portion of my Makeunder Step Two: Exfoliate Stuff exfoliation!
Stay tuned for more freeing exfoliation SHEDing!
Great comments and good luck! I still owe you three hours to help you with any organization project. Just let me know when you want some help!
Posted by: Becky | Monday, March 08, 2010 at 02:50 PM
Becky - I'm not yet organized enough to make good use of your help! ; ) Thanks for the encouragement!!
Posted by: Melony | Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 02:36 PM