Time Management Tuesday: How This Year's Purge Is Different From Last Year's

As you can see, we've started pulling out the big stuff now. My cellar TV room is beginning to look as if we're getting ready for a tag sale. I'm talking about the October Purge at Chez Gauthier, in case someone just surfing by is wondering what this picture is about.

During last year's purge I started focusing on one spot or another in the house.

"I realized that just getting rid of thirty random items out of an entire house wasn't going to do much to help me organize my environment, improve my impulse control, and manage my time. But focusing on specific areas, like that kitchen counter, could. Thus I got rid of table cloths from the china cabinet in the dining room so that I won't have to spend time on my knees in front of it looking for linens when I'm expecting guests. I worked on the pantry so I, well, could walk through it, to be honest.

I got rid of some random things, too. But, really, the way to get a usable result from a possession purge is to apply a little logic, do a little planning. I may do an annual purge."

Weeeeellll, that's not how things have been going this year. I definitely have just been scooping things up, and I think that's what my husband has been doing as well. Me, I've been picking up what I'm going to call "floaters"--things that were just lying around here and there through the house. If I was in the attic putting away suitcases, I would see something that hadn't been used in years and didn't work very well, anyway. An item that had been moved into the pantry months (a year?) ago to get it out of the way is now on the purge table. It's really going to be out of my way soon. Picking up one item to get out of here sometimes led to finding more.

It's been more random than last year. This probably says something about the state of my house and my mind recently.

Next week: The 2015 Purge Finale with a complete set of pictures.