Theories of Motivation

I’ve been dragging my feet on my project over the last few days. I think I’m over this whole decluttering thing, and just want it to be finished. There’s space in the garage and attic now because of all the things we’ve gotten rid of, and I’ve been slowly putting things in bags and boxes and moving them into the garage until I feel like dealing with them. There’s no impending court date or similar to motivate me to tackle all the crap, so I’m trying out some other ideas to motivate myself.

I debated in my head for a while about whether or not to put those things out of sight, or to leave them lying about. I almost feel like I don’t deserve a clutter-free house until I’ve truly earned it by getting rid of everything, which is why I make myself look at all this stuff I mostly don’t need or want. And having stuff out of sight means I’m not thinking about it. But I finally decided to get as much out of the house as possible, and as time allows I’ll go through it all, slowly, and put away or toss.

Here are my current ideas, more effective than lighting an actual fire under my ass:

  • Challenges: My stuff in/stuff out challenge has been helpful, mostly because I’m getting rid of things more regularly, but also because the idea of getting rid of even one thing really propels me when I feel lazy and I usually get rid of more than one thing. Today all I wanted to do was read. It was sunny and beautiful today but it got humid as the day went on which added to my lethargy. But I dragged myself into the garage and put 16 things in a box. We are going camping later this week and I needed to dig some supplies out of the garage. I thought filling a box while I searched was a good idea, and it was. I’ve been thinking about a similar 30-day challenge for July. I have some ideas but haven’t settled on anything yet.
  • Audiobooks: Back in the fall, I realized I am over music. When I commuted by car I was always finding new artists and good songs but it’s harder now. Being a book snot, I turned up my nose at audio books but I started to listen during walks and loved them. Since the books motivated me to keep walking, I decided to see if this approach would help me with cleaning. My current book, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, is really good, and today it really helped  propel me through the task.  I was able to not let the humidity bother me so much and I didn’t over-think whether or not to give something away. I’m only on chapter 2 of the book so I hope to make a big dent before I finish it.
  • Netflix: Not as mobile as books, but I can fold laundry, which I’ve done before, and I can also sort through stuff to add to donation boxes. Today was Emma’s last full day of school and for the last several days she’s been coming home with notebooks and workbooks and papers.
Today's paper haul.

Today’s paper haul.

I need to sort and recycle which I plan to do in front of the tv. Most of this will get recycled but I want to keep the few pieces of original writing. I need to clean this out too, which is also mostly school papers.

My command center, which has been swallowed by paper.

My command center, which has been swallowed by paper.

I planned to go through all the papers tonight while watching House of Cards, which was going to occupy me while sorting through endless math and spelling worksheets. But I didn’t get around to it as I was distracted by the story of the escaped convicts who’ve been spotted near the park where we’ll be camping. I’m not worried they’ll appear at our cabin jonesing for s’mores but I have been very distracted by the stories and my inner geography nerd has spent too much time looking over maps of the Southern Tier when I should have been dong something productive.

I bought only four books at the book sale- a fraction of what I bought last year. I felt both pleased with myself for being restrained and a little disappointed that I didn’t see much else that I really wanted.

My newest epiphany, which I’ll talk about Wednesday: spending a few days enjoying the outdoors, sleeping under the stars (ok, in a cabin), and cooking over a campfire are things that epitomized simplicity. Right? WRONG! Oh, so wrong!

 


3 Responses to Theories of Motivation

  1. Ok, this is more of a next year school paper idea, but it really helped me. My sister-in-law is an organizational specialist, and she has a great idea for school papers: get one of those clear plastic containers that is a little bigger than paper and put all potential assignment “keepers” (in other words, go ahead and ditch the daily math, literacy, spelling worksheets that seem to come home and breed), but anything that brings joy, put in the box. Then, at the end of the year, you have all the good stuff already sorted out. You can then go through and pick the ones that you want to keep to represent her year, or that are just really special. Move these to where you permanently keep school papers and reuse the plastic box for the next school year. This system tamed the school paper clutter problem for me, because I could just recycle the same old same old papers, but I had a spot for the special or maybe special things, and after the full school year, I was ready to really assess what was worth keeping.

  2. I don’t think you about spending a day reading or relaxing. We simplify our lives to make more space for the things and people we love (at least, that’s why I’m doing it). If the other things aren’t bothering you, why worry about them? If you find you don’t need or love them in the future, you can always get rid of them at that point.

    All that to say, some time spent enjoying the fruits of your labors sounds like a good thing.

  3. The end-of-year glut of papers that suddenly appeared the last few weeks of school were quite overwhelming here too. I had done the plastic box through the year to try to corral the papers, but the end-of-year notebooks, writing booklets, summer reading books, have been difficult to decide on their location. This was end-of-year for first grade!
    We just encountered basement flooding from all the Ohio rains. My husband’s theory of ‘stash it in a box, deal with it later’ came back to haunt us. We’ve been hauling wet soppy boxes out and filling construction-weight trash bags all weekend. As I look at this overwhelming amounts of stuff, I regret delaying the process.

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