Anal Retentive

So back in the days before children, I was a highly organized person. Seriously - it was amazing. Now, this seems to be a unique phenomenon that lasted for just a section of my adult life. If you were to look at my room when I was a child, you would find no evidence of this. I used to have goldfish as pets and once it took me three days before I found one of them who had jumped out of the tank and ended up buried in the pile of clothes on the floor. I drove my mother nuts...

But then, came the golden days of organization. Everything had a home. At work, you would never know I did anything because my desk was always immaculate and there were never more than 3-5 messages in my in-box. I liked things this way!

Then came the children. Those days disappeared. You could still see small pockets struggling to survive - my tupperware cupboard, the way I fold towels, the labeled bins for everyone to put their own mitts in...and I still go batty if there are more than 5 things in my inbox - I have lots of folders to sort messages into.

This year has seen a small resurgence in my anal retentive self. I feel the need to be organized once again and find that the piles and chaos are making me twitch more than usual. There are a few more neat pockets appearing. I am striving to attack the piles of paper sooner and looking for new ways to cut out the clutter. After this I am heading to the eco-station to drop off a box of dead electronics that has been sitting in the basement for far too long. I realize this might not be the most exciting news but for me it is a breakthrough! As the kids get older and are more able to clean up after themselves, I am finding the ability to clean a room and find that it still looks that way at the end of the day - wow!! Of course, the cats seem to find great joy in fighting on a freshly vacuumed rug.

So how do you deal with clutter? What are your main hot spots? It is definitely paper in this house...I welcome your ideas!