Clearing Out Paper

Yesterday came the cleaning out paper.

There is a process which always seems to happen (or at least should happen) each and every time one contemplates a move.  It is called The Cleaning.  It can also be known as The Clearing, The Mucking Out, or even The Great Piling for The Even Greater Fire (or Yard Sale, depending on flammability).  It is the process by which one goes through and begin to evaluate and dispose of everything that came with one from the last location.

As always, I am amazed by the types and amounts of paper that we store.  It is not just the items you would expect - tax receipts and paperwork from old businesses, old bills - but things that just over run your filing and your piling:  manuals to things you now longer have, checkbooks from 4 years ago, benefits paperwork from 3 years ago. Piles and piles of materials that were given to you as important which you, in turn, carefully preserved in locations hidden away and thereby forgotten.

Paper is recyclable - which is good, I suppose. The bad part is that we seem to feel the need to get and print out so much of it, treasuring it to ourselves as a precious items when it fact so much of it is merely for informational purposes or even worse, really for nothing at all.

Every time we seem to do this it serves as a reminder to me of what I am trying to do with preserving all of this paper - indeed, with so much of what we keep and store.  Am I doing this out of habit?  Am I doing this out of some deep need to hold on to items?  Or am I simply being lazy up front, not questioning each and every thing as it touches my hands?

I am not like this at work at all.  Except when I am quite busy (and so lose the time to organize) my desk and draws are clean and virtually empty.  I hate clutter.  I hate losing things on my desk only to find out that they were needed later and being "that person" - the person that held something up because it was lost.  And yet seemingly this personal behaviour gets left at the work door.

We are done with paper at this point so I imagine we will be moving on to other items, other boxes, other tubs to review and clean.  My hope is that with the paper, we can once again begin to make some space amidst the clutter - not only for the physical benefit of not moving it, but for the sense of serenity and peace it brings to the mind.