In With The New, Out With The Old

I've just had a good clear out.  Something about a new year always brings out the declutterer in me, you see.  I'm not one of nature's tidiest creatures normally but there comes a time when you can't see your desk for piles of miscellaneous clutter and the bookcase is groaning with so many once read books there's no room for the boat load of new ones you just ordered.

I'm under there somewhere

So I get to work with a vengeance.  Time was I couldn't part with books - and I still find it hard, but so does every bookaholic (check the Three Step Recovery Process below) - but now I realise it's me family or the books and me family have to come first, don't they?  Well, usually.


So it's get the bin liners and clear out those shelves.  And it's not just books.  Old manuscripts, computer print outs of those helpful hints you saw on a website and wanted to keep for reference, scribbled notes about projects that never seemed to take off.  It's actually frightening how much clutter you can accumulate.  Getting it out of the way soon becomes a mania after you overcome your initial tentativeness.  But you have to take care.  It's easy to toss out that very useful gadget for propping up a notebook when you're copy typing in the mistaken belief that it's just another pile of junk.  Be unsentimental, but pragmatic.  Maybe you could sell it on Ebay.


Anyway, that's my study tidied up for the New Year.  It does help clear your creative blocks and I can heartily recommend it.


The Bookaholic Three Step Recovery Programme:

1. Take book off the shelf.
2. Ask yourself this: If I'm drowning and this is in my pocket, would I throw it away?
3. If the answer is yes, bin the book.  (If no, you need intensive therapy.)