Saturday, December 24, 2011

Paper Monster




I have been saving too many papers and have resolved to reduce the volume by at least a quarter. My goal is by one half. And by Tuesday at the latest.

The stacks, like the blob out of the old Steve McQueen film, creep up on you. Given time and neglect, you'll be surrounded by papers of no use now but of potential use later, at least that's your cover story. These morale-lowering, depression-inducing, hills and files are hardly reassuring. For every occasion when you say, "I'm glad I saved that" there must be fifty when you are stunned the item is still around or you are wondering what induced you to hang onto it in the first place.

My mother was a champion hoarder of Olympics caliber. A child of the Depression, she would keep things on the premise that they might be needed or traded some day. One item that I've kept in memory of her is an old burglar alarm key to which she'd attached a note: "Doesn't work."

That says it all. Bring on the trash bags.

4 comments:

Kurt Harden said...

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

Michael Wade said...

Kurt,

I'll need it.

Merry Christmas!

Michael

Richard (Rick) Georges said...

Mery Christmas, Michael. While you are shredding, get a scanner, and you can keep digital files. They only use electrons. There are several sum $500 scanners out there, and PaperPort Professional 14 saves them in folders, and you can save them to the cloud for access from anywhere.
Rick

Michael Wade said...

Rick,

Thanks for the great idea!

Merry Christmas!

Michael