Jolene and I have been doing some purging as of late. We pride ourselves in being minimalists, but the storage room somehow became full of stuff. And so did some other unsuspecting places: the garage, the shed, the attic, the closets, under the beds and seemingly every drawer. I guess that’s what happens when you live in the same place for nearly two decades. “Stuff” accumulates.
Prior to our current home, we lived in four other locations. And, as such, we purged some items along the way. We also moved many of the same unopened boxes several times. Until now.
With the help and motivation from our youngest daughter Abby, we are sorting through everything — and I mean everything. Our garbage and recycle bins have been overflowing.
This process reminds me of two pieces of advice I received in my first job out of college. The first was to handle a piece of paper once. The same goes for voicemails, emails and text messages. Don’t save them to review later. Don’t let them pile up. And certainly don’t just ignore them. If you do — and maybe you can relate (or know someone who can) — you suddenly have thousands of these items, and the stress of that piles on, too.
The second related piece of advice was on how to handle tasks immediately and not procrastinate. “Do it, ditch it or delegate it,” I was told by my first boss out of college. The best scenario is to do it right now, he suggested, and get it over with. Or if it simply isn’t important, ditch it. And if you can ask someone else you trust to get it handled for you, delegate it.
I try to use these two tips on every task I have and every piece of paper, every voicemail, every email and every text message I receive. It is not failproof, which is obvious by the “stuff” we are sorting through right now, but it helps.
And the purge continues.
Have a marvelous Monday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 | 
