At work, I have a drawer in my desk which is deep and roomy and contains work in progress. A certain amount of detritus builds up, and the more recently visited work finds its way to the top, while the less important finds its way to the bottom. Archaeologists digging in my drawer would notice the various layers of activity which have taken place, and could date the drawer fairly accurately without the need for carbon-dating techniques.
This drawer keeps me sane. I know that seems a bit weird, but let me explain. The drawer contains all the papers I’ve been working on recently, documents for reference, files, snippets of information ‘I might just find useful’, and all of my pending work. I know that what I need I will find in my drawer. It is my to-do list in 3D format, and if I don’t know what’s in the drawer, my sanity starts to become unravelled.
When I can no longer fit my work back in the drawer at the end of the day. I know it is time to purge, and today was the purge day. I shredded, I threw away and I tidied. I felt cleansed.
There were no monsters lurking, either.
I feel better already.
Hang on. You said “When I can no longer fit my work back in the drawer at the end of the day. I know it is time to purge”. You can fit your work in a drawer? I think I’m overdue a good purge.
I used to have three trays for my work. I labelled them as follows:
Important and Urgent
Urgent and not important
Important and not urgent
If anything didn’t fit into these categories I would put it into the circular filing system. Sadly all three trays overloaded and now I just have one big pile of work where people just add stuff to the top. Not the bottom, just the top. Definitely time for a purge.
Frog, I learned a long time ago that my brain just couldn’t deal with in-trays. Just couldn’t. The set of trays on my desk (which, incidentally, contains stationery) has a big sheet of laminated paper on the top which says ‘This Is NOT my in-tray – If you want me to see something, tuck it under my keyboard’.
Working in a confidential environment means that all my work and papers contain sensitive information, and as a result must be stored securely away from prying eyes – hence why I need a drawer.
Frog, just shred most of it and see what happens. You’ll feel great!
Ha ha my keyboard would be out of reach. Shredding sounds like a plan.