The Ubiquitous Closet of “Later”
Raise your hand if you have a junk drawer somewhere in your house. Good. Now keep it up if you also have a closet or cranny where you put all the things you need to deal with later.
Come on, get those hands up.
It can be the attic or the basement or some other part of your house. It doesn’t specifically have to be a closet (or a cranny).
This, though, is your ubiquitous place of “later.”
It’s where things go to languish for the day you come around to sort them, look for the things you put in there six months ago, get distracted by the bag you thought you lost last winter, and then you forget why you entered the space at all.
We had a closet like that.
It’s in the office, which is the most-trafficked room in the house during the day. It’s convenient to put things out of sight in the walk-in closet to get to them later.
But later is a trap, and a lie.
We are going through decluttering activities this month and the most time-consuming piece so far has been this ubiquitous closet of later.
Amongst these things were binders full of old high school papers and shoeboxes upon shoeboxes filled with junk we don’t need, haven’t used, and won’t ever touch again.
Now that it’s mostly back in order, the idea is to never make this closet for things of “later” again.
Following the Rules
We’ll deal with them promptly, putting each item in its proper place, following the Unstuff Your Life rules of One Home for Everything and Like With Like.
The textbooks belong with the rest of the books, not stacked sideways on top of each other on a shelf in this closet.
The blank notebooks all belong with each other on top of the filing cabinet, easily accessible instead of scattered between my desk-side shelf and three different boxes in this closet.
All of the office supplies belong in one container, not split among junk boxes and hidden away in this closet.
One home for everything.
Like with like.
We are unstuffing our life, and this is represented by the unstuffing of this closet of later.
Your Ubiquitous Closet
What does your ubiquitous corner of “later” look like? Is it dark and gloomy, filled to the brim with things you don’t need, things you don’t know are even there, and things that you probably should just have thrown away a year ago?
I challenge you to take a peek inside.
Shine a light around and just take it all in for a few minutes.
Then go read Unstuff Your Life and begin to master your clutter like never before.
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