Am I there yet?

I decided a couple weeks ago that I was going to treat this organizing project as a process, not a destination.  Only a couple days ago I was taking a long journey by car.  It occurred to me that if I thought of the trip as a series of little sections, it would be more bearable than wondering at what time I would end up at the city I was aiming to visit.  Like, if I told myself, I'll stop in Cottage Grove and then I'll stop in Grant's Pass, then  it gave me little goals to meet.  I didn't become impatient with myself for not getting to my last stop by a specific time, and I enjoyed the whole trip a lot more.

Thusly I am approaching my decluttering objectives.  If I say to myself, today I'm going to sort out this pile of papers on my couch and focus on that until it's done the way I want, then I don't get overwhelmed.  In contrast, when I look at my basement, or my computer room, or any whole room as a whole, I feel like I will never get through it.  Little bits of success make me want to see more.  You can't go through a garden and thresh out every weed in a single sweep; you must pull out each little nuisance one by one.

This process can be fun.  Additionally, I've found so many lost items while sorting that I want to see what else will turn up.

Last week I decided to apply this approach to my work in my living area.  I had been spending so much time taking things out of the basement that my upstairs was getting out of control.  After just a few hours I had a clean living room and kitchen, and the linen closet was looking a lot better too.  I had an even bigger pile of things to donate to Salvation Army, which went down to the basement to await their truck on pickup day.

I'm so preoccupied with decluttering as a hobby as well as a necessity, that I've begun treating it as a form of pornography.  I've been surfing before-and-after pictures of basements, bedrooms, closets and kitchens that underwent cleanups on Google Images.  I hunted down articles with tips and personal case histories.  I don't know if they helped so much as made me want to dive into their messes and see if I could make some headway.

Gretchen Rubin, author of the book The Happiness Project, has lots of great advice for living well, and counts decluttering as an excellent way to raise your spirits.  Read her upbeat blog here.