Work is Good: Colleen Confronts the Paper Pile of Doom!
on January 13th, 2010My office tends to be neat and tidy. It wasn’t always that way because years ago I lived in a little condo. When I was self publishing, I got a foot high stack of mail a day, and had to juggle the demands of an office, art studio, and the piles of inventory in 900 square feet of space.
To add to the cluttery mess, back in the 1980′s my mentor, science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas, was forced to downsize from a large home to a small apartment. He gave most of his studio to me, including his decades of morgue file collections and tons of art supplies. For years, I had to keep all this in a rented storage unit. Since then, several artists have bequeathed to me the remains of their studios. About a year ago, from another artist I received 8 huge boxes of ancient reference books and art supplies which had to be sorted and archived. Some of these items were nearly 100 years old.
When an artist gives me their treasures, I feel a strong obligation to take care of them. If I can’t make use of them, I have to pass them on. The tools-supplies-notes seem to me like the remains of someone’s mind. It’s hard for me to get rid of any piece of paper, and procrastination makes that pile of paper grow. Year after year, I’ve avoided sorting that pile, and year after year, it’s gotten worse.
My work files – art and business – have never been in proper order. Current files yes, anything from the past no.
Have you ever ordered something from me, written a letter, asked me to send something? You got a chirpy “Right away!” response. 90% of the time, right away means right away. The other 10 % of the time, whatever I meant to do got buried in the Paper Pile of Doom. The un-filed 10,000 pages of original art, the 20 year-old legal documents, the fan mail, the old reference files…God forbid anything of yours gets lost in the Paper Pile of Doom, because it will take me months to find again.
Moving out to the farm gave me lots more room for sorting and cleaning out these files and the several dozen boxes of stuff. But moving also made the problem worse when an almost helpful acquaintance decided to help me out by grabbing handfuls of paper and files out of cabinets, and just throwing them in to moving boxes. With no thought of pesky things like keeping alphabetized items in order. Or even making sure the files were right side up when thrown into the boxes. Which destroyed the file system.
It is a new year, and I am finally on the last box of the Paper Pile of Doom – one last box of unsorted paper.
Most of what is strewn about in this picture has been pre-sorted, but still needs to be sorted again. The art is still not in order.
The ruthless pruning has given me lots more room. I have also been sorting out books and collectibles to make even more room for proper filing of art. I have cleared bookshelves of books. Art will be slipped into folders and placed on those shelves.
This process has taken a long time. It is liberating and I am very relieved to see the end of it.
However, I did not expect it to be so upsetting. I’ve been digging up old correspondence and legal files. When I pick up a piece of paper, there is a powerful memory attached to it. Sometimes that memory completely derails me. I get caught up all over again. I find something about which I had mercifully forgotten, and all comes rushing back. I can lose hours to a fugue state musing over old business.
I now realize why I have been procrastinating from dealing with the Paper Pile of Doom.
I was a little embarrassed about this. Dealing with a Paper Pile of Doom is bad enough, but finding myself getting upset by the old memories in it is worse.
Then I asked some friends and family about it. Every single person I spoke to also had a Paper Pile of Doom, and every single person admitted that they delayed dealing with it because that meant facing the past.
I found a very important legal document yesterday that I forwarded to some friends. It proved something I had claimed for years about a former client. I had forgotten. I was surprised how upset I was when I saw the document again. It’s the kind of slam dunk evidence you really want to keep on file, and then make sure goes to a museum collection after you are dead (RE: Teh Crazy WORST PUBLISHER EVAH.)
All my friends advised me to seal the damned thing in lucite and never lose it again (I’ve also scanned it to the computer). More importantly, they advised me to seal it off and never look at it again.
But my friends also admitted that they too struggled with facing the Paper Pile of Doom because of the land mines in it. Here’s one note:
Actually, that’s WHY I can’t bring myself to do it.
Too traumatic.
I have ALL of the early papers –personal correspondence, legal crap–I just cannot bring myself to go through it all.
You should make sure that particular piece of paper can be found at a moment’s notice.
Other than that, be thankful he’s out of your life permanently.
My very good friend Julie Ditrich confronted her Paper Pile of Doom some months ago and blogged about it here. Julie is not only a professional writer whose work includes WaveDancers, but she is also a licensed hypnotherapist (though she no longer practices).
The act of decluttering has had psychological benefits as well. I’ve felt a huge energy shift inside me. The only way I can describe it is prior to decluttering I felt like much of my energy was leaking out of me like water leaking out of holes in a dam wall. Once I started cleaning, some of those holes miraculously plugged themselves up and I was suddenly able to access that energy again to complete many of my other jobs. The result – clarity, peace of mind, productivity, and enormous focus accompanied by a lightness of spirit.
Surprising to realize how much emotional baggage goes along with that clutter, and how painful this process is. But I also feel lighter, as if cleaning out these old papers and giving them a final resting place in a box I hope never to need to open again has made the corners of my mind lighter.
This morning I got this note from Julie:
When you pick up a old bit of paper and experiencing pain, you are accessing the feelings of the original traumatic incident via a pathway called the affect bridge. “Affect” in psychology refers to feelings. The experience you are having is double-edged: reminding you of a painful past where there may still be lots of unprocessed feelings, but they are also a reminder of your wonderful resources that you can channel into your art and writing. Many people are cut off from this aspect of themselves but for creators these experiences can elevate their art/writing from good to brilliant so that the work connects emotionally to the reader. So … be grateful and appreciative that you have these internal facilities. They will serve you well.
Get ready to embrace your greatness and shift into a mind space where you are all that you are meant to be.
I don’t know if I am going to embrace any greatness, but I do know I will never get anything worthwhile in life if I let the heaviness of this pile from the past drag me down every time I try to confront it.
For previous posts on time management and my struggle with the Paper Pile of Doom, click here.
Congratulations on getting the Paper Pile of Doom down to one box!
I go through exactly the same kind of thing with mine; you’re not alone. The sinking feeling when I think about having to even touch it, the dread of going through all the papers thrown in there… ugh. My solution is to call up my best friend and have him come over to sit with me while I go through it, and I do the same for him with his PPoD. He’s the one person I can trust to not judge all the embarrassing secrets lurking within my PPoD. We go through a lot of scotch, but we get it done eventually.
I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with letting people handle my things. I once had a male friend who I trusted to handle some papers and he ended up spending years gathering info to work on an unauthorized bio. He was a professional writer, but most of his credits were minor, and he often had trouble making ends meet. Yet he conflated his credits and constantly bragged about connections he did not have and money he did not make.
Just thinking about him makes me stabby.
I found a lot of correspondence from him in the pile. I had almost forgotten what a pathological liar he was.
He claimed to many friends and fans he ran my career, and paid my bills, and handled all my affairs. And that he was my boyfriend. None of it was true, especially the boyfriend part, which infuriated me when I found out. I bet his wife wouldn’t like it, either.
Last night I found a number of letters from him, complaining about how broke he was, ruminating about his salesman job, and thanking me for loans and other aid.
I recall having to email this crap to mutual friends to prove this doofus was not my Svengali, did not give me money, did not run my career, was not my agent, was not my boyfriend, and did not make the big writer money he claimed.
And just seeing this stuff again made my blood boil.
Obviously.
Grrr.
Put into box. Seal box, Put into attic. Do not look at it again unless you absolutely must.
Like, if he starts claiming he is the center of your universe again.
As if.
I can totally see why you’d be stabby; what an asshat! Yeah, sure, parlaying a tenuous connection to people is a great way to get more status! Sheesh.
Btw, I don’t let my friend handle my things; he’s in charge of keeping me on task and pouring more scotch while I sort through the PPoD.
I cannot even think of this guy without getting nauseous. I let him handle a few small things. Given an inch, he took a mile.
For example, I left him the keys to my condo to let in the carpet repair guy while I was out of town. Then he took the liberty of going through my things. This was while I was moving. I was out to the farm for the weekend, and the next thing I know I got a call from him. He had loaded up his van with my stuff and was right down the road. What a big help!
That’s right, without my permission, he went THROUGH MY HOME, loaded up his car, and just dropped off my stuff. Stuff which was now in a state of chaos. This guy had no personal boundaries at all.
And I have not seen my collection of Russian lacquerware since.
Add to the pile broken dishes to go with the hopelessly disorganized papers. I was furious.
And I suppose it should go without saying that many items showed up in dribs and drabs shipped home over the course of the next two years. I kid you not. I got the distinct impression this was his way of hanging on for dear life.
Over a year later, a box of financial papers wended its way home. Yeah, back tax records.
To this day I have no idea if I got everything back, and no idea what personal attention he gave my things with his grubby hands.
His excuse was “Well, it was all just lying around.” Why yes, things do lie around when you are laying them out to sort them and put them in their proper place, safely, in labeled boxes for moving. I can’t believe I left this guy my key for the carpet repair, and he let himself trawl through my things.
Shortly thereafter, I found out about his Walter Mitty life as my #1 Squeeze.
OK, getting pissed again. Must. Stop. Now.
Oh, golly, gee, Colleen! I hope there are some nice memories for you lurking in the Pile of Doom! The Insignificant Twit should not be messing with your energy, even in retrospect.
Regarding the papers from the other artists, do you keep them? I was just wondering. I know there might be some university special collections that might be interested in papers like that. Just idle thinking.
By the way, you are inspiring me. I have several Piles of Doom waiting for me to tackle them. Some of them don’t have anything more dire than “books that need homes”, but I’ve been procrastinating anyway. Your diligence chastises me.
Yes, I keep all the papers.
I’ve found a lot of fun stuff, for sure.
I’m feeling left out: I don’t have a Paper Pile of Doom…
You slacker!
I can really identify with this post. About 4 years ago I had to make a panic move to my current house and the “friends” who helped us out threw stuff in boxes, whatever fit, and threw it on the truck. I still can’t find half my stuff. It doesn’t help that I married a man who isn’t necessarily unorganized, but just doesn’t care about things like clutter. Maybe I’ll have the courage to tackle my piles soon.
Oh, Meredith, I am hugging you with internet hugs of sympathy.
What would have taken no more than TWO DAYS to properly organize and move, has taken YEARS to fix. And many items arrived broken, and there’s no fix for that!
Nothing beats careful planning and organizing BEFORE, because dealing with the AFTER is always much worse.
When I moved across country 20 years ago (!) I shipped three boxes out ahead of time and then drove with the rest of it in my little hatchback. Had no problem with the drive. Two boxes with neat knicknacks and mementos arrived safely. The one box that had the autographed hardbacks and comics now sits on the shelf of a Post Office employee somewhere. Bastards.