Clear-out help did anything but ...

I WAS sitting in my room and decided it needed a severe clearout. Initially, this room was called my study, which really meant a room that was mine and I could dump my stuff in it with a promise to sort it out later. Then when I started working from home it was renamed my office. It still remained the place where I dumped my papers so the clutter became ever worse.

Last week, I had to move a great heap of papers so that I might sit at my computer to write my column. Initially, I did use a laptop for this activity and happily sat in the lounge for the task. But now the dreaded macular disease has invaded my eyes and I have to use a PC with a big screen if I want to see what I have typed.

So now the time has arrived when a clear-out is needed if I am to be able to get in my room let alone work there.

I thought I might load all the gathering mess into a black sack and hope the refuse men might not object to at least two extra loads with the wheelie bin. However, Senior Management insisted we at least check what was being thrown away.

Now that was clearly going to take a lot longer.

My idea of simply getting armfuls of paper to dump it into the black bag would take about an hour, I assumed.

Now I had to try and read each piece of paper, I could see the onehour job was going to take about a month, and that assumes I do not give up halfway! It was also agreed that some paper could go in the bag, but some was considered had to meet its end in the shredder.

I now had to empty the shredder occasionally. I got that a bit wrong as well because if I wait too long, the bin is full and the shredder starts to regurgitate the shredded paper. By the time I had got the hang of this, I decided it was time to have some tea and cake.

Why is it that stopping for a break makes it so difficult to get started again? Many years ago, when a trainee in the drawing office, it was the tea trolley that provided the refreshment break. Fifteen minutes maximum and then the tea break ended. No more chat, just pick up the pencil and begin again where I had left off. However, that was then, now tea breaks can take as long as I want them to.

So back to the marginally less paper I went, but I now have to ask why I started to find some of the paper so interesting to read? I am sure it was not so when I first got it, or perhaps I did not read it properly at the time.

Senior Management also got involved to ask questions about papers she was reading and this hardly speeded up the job.

I have found that even this onerous clear-up activity has some good points. I have found a number of papers I thought I had thrown away and these I shall safely file away. I have also found the book covering the history of my grammar school, which opened in 1950 and ended its life as a comprehensive in 1969. As always, some names get remembered and also I have already opened the pages to see some of the sports team photographs.

I must have had the book around seven years since my sister bought it for me and I have determined to enjoy reading it again. Will I have to wait until I have cleared my room? Well it was not a new years’ resolution to get tidy so perhaps I can forget it now.