What a difference

2 minutes and 20 seconds makes.

Actually, the fact that it only took a couple of minutes is the proof that I needed to continue on as I began. When you have less stuff and you pay attention to it once in a while, it takes less work. Because there were only a few things that had piled up on the desk (the largish pile of paperwork and lists of necessary steps to ensure that my Little Prince gets his visa to Argentina, paperwork from the termite inspection man who came on Monday, some papers from Taylor's trip to the dentist last week, some tax forms for returns that are still in progress, and only one small pile of mail to be sorted/shredded/tossed) AND because my files are cleaned out and it's easy to file stuff now, it wasn't as much of a nightmare as it looked. This is stuff that's important, so if I lost all or part of those papers I'd be in trouble. So there's a little voice inside my head repeating, over and over again, "Do you know where everything is?", and I didn't. I thought it was on the desk, but what if it wasn't? What if some of the pile had fallen off the desk into the trash can that sits there beside the desk? All of which was making my stomach hurt.

Above is the messy, strife-filled desk. Below is the peaceful, calm, all-is-well desk less than 2 1/2 minutes later.
Want to know why the messy desk bothers me so much? I figured it out. It's because as I (and everyone else) walk up the stairs, there it is "BAM!" staring you right in the face. It's the same sort of deal as making your bed - if you make your bed even an untidy rooms looks neater. The reverse is true too - an unmade bed makes a tidy room look messy. So with a cleared-off desk, you aren't as likely to be annoyed by or even aware of the smudges on the woodwork or the dust on the curtains, and the disorganization isn't keeping you up at night with a bellyache. It's housekeeping for lazy people who just want to be able to sleep at night!