Order on Tuesdays – Need help with your stationery addiction?
Really! I think I need a 12 step program.
For an addiction to office supplies.
Who in their right mind, besides a retail store, needs so many office supplies?
Two closets and full cupboards. A desk with huge drawers. A mini cabinet next to my husband’s desk. An old dresser. Everything packed. Stacked. Stacked on shelves. In drawers. In boxes and containers.
Everything neat and clean. Organized. Too many things!
And this, after having purged office supplies a few months earlier!
I had gotten rid of boxes and hanging folder boxes. Pens and pencils thrown by the hundreds. Discarded tablets, the ones given away at conferences with other people’s names. Dusty folders and files. Six digit floppy disks … does anyone use them more?
Things I didn’t even know I had, much less that I ever used.
Old computer cables, accessories and chargers. Additional telephone wiring. Where did all these come from? What if I throw in the same one that I would need?
Enough staples for several lives. Sticky notes of all sizes and colors. Partially used diaries that didn’t feel quite right, so they were put away in a drawer.
Even after some serious cleaning, she still had a supply closet and a closet full of office supplies.
But it was enough. Now was the time to admit it: I, Joan, am addicted to stationery.
And with that, the additional supply cabinet had to disappear.
After all, it was our guest bedroom. It hadn’t been a home office for months.
Who needs a supply closet in a guest bedroom?
We had plenty of room to store supplies in our shared home office.
Big enough, don’t you think? And yet even this wardrobe had to get thinner.
Somehow things that weren’t office supplies slipped off the shelves, like two boxes of wallets!
Outside those they left. Given. Thrown out. Stored in the closet of my room, where by right they belonged.
How easy it is to let the excess build up, grow and take over.
Especially for those items that we think are so valuable. Usable. And necessary.
Before we know it, we have to add more storage to hold it all.
Here’s a BIG hint … use your current storage limits as a guide. If you notice you need to ADD more storage space (another closet, drawer, shelf, or shudder thought, a PAID storage unit) then STOP. Take a break.
Here’s your warning sign: DANGER. DANGER.
Time to let go instead of hold. Thin the herd. To take stock of what you REALLY use.
Recognize that you don’t need anything else; in fact, chances are you can get by on less.
