Purging POWER

I gave our paper shredder a good workout today as I worked on the P word in my 2008 POWER resolution. Early this month, I resolved this would be my year to find POWER through goals assigned to each letter.

P is for Purge. I will purge the excess stuff and unhealthy behaviors that are cluttering my life. Today I started with the filing cabinet.

Do you notice how there are so many shelves, storage bins and organizational tools on sale this time of year? It shouldn't surprise you that there are thousands of consumers like me with the same resolve each New Year to get organized.

I was reading recently that buying all that will not magically de-clutter your house. If you've got so much stuff it doesn't fit in your house, it's not a "house problem," it's an "occupant problem." In other words, it's not that the house isn't big enough to fit all your stuff. It's that you, the occupant, have too much stuff. Putting it in bins may keep it out of sight in neat containers but it's likely, if you don't throw anything out this year, you'll find yourself buying more pretty storage containers next January, too.

So I decided to hit the filing cabinet. Logically I can't clear off the two desks in the computer room until I have space to file and store. I was feeling pretty good about shredding files we really did not need a paper record of anymore. When I got to the bottom drawer, I hit the jackpot -- dozens of really old pay stubs to shred and a lot of old insurance books to ditch.

Back in the day before all information was available online, we used to get a ton of pamphlets plus those inch-thick booklets with lists of all the preferred providers in our insurance network. With both of us working for the same company, there was two of everything!

Those books filled a garbage bag too heavy for this bad-backed babe to lift. Now that's a good purge! Now I can start with desks tomorrow. I am starting to feel the POWER... are you?