Clutter and Junk - What To Do

I feel that I have wasted nearly half a day today. Oh, sure, I did some work activities... I showed a house to a newly signed buyer, and I did some various computer tasks... but most of the day I cleaned.

My home office is probably like a lot of you reading this - messy. I come home from the other office, toss down my things on the desk, and forget about it. If something doesn't require a DO OR DIE decision or action, it will probably get tossed onto a pile. For a while.

A long while.

So today, I decided enough was enough. I'm finding cleaning to be therapeutic. I found some old leads that didn't pan out. I tossed them in the recycle heap. I found a former listing that turned into a listing-from-REALLY HOT PLACE. It went into the trash (the trash felt better, even though I could have recycled it too!).

A big problem I face is that I hold onto everything. Forever. And then a little longer. I decided to create a new rule of thumb. If I didn't use an item the previous year, and I don't anticipate a need for it within the next year, then I can consider tossing it out.

Well, I have to say consider. That's a big step for someone like me who is just now throwing away his 2005 NAR Member Benefits packet.